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To Boil Shoulder of Mutton with Oysters

A boiled shoulder of mutton seasoned with salt, pepper, mace, and oysters, served in a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Boil Shoulder of Mutton with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Hang the mutton for a few days, then salt it well for 2 days.

  2. Bone the mutton and sprinkle it with black pepper and ground mace.

  3. Lay oysters over the mutton, roll it tightly, and tie it.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew the mutton in a small amount of water with an onion and whole peppercorns until tender, keeping the stew-pan covered while cooking.

  2. Prepare gravy and stew some oysters in it.

  3. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter, then pour it over the mutton after removing the ties.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Oyster + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Long, gentle stewing turns the tough shoulder meat tender and moist.
Oysters
Their briny flavour seasons the rolled meat and the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the mutton.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth body to the thickened gravy.

The step that matters

Stewing the rolled mutton until tender. Shoulder is a tough cut rich in connective tissue. It needs slow, moist heat over a long time to break down into tender meat. Keeping the pan covered holds in steam so the meat does not dry out while it cooks in a small amount of water.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, oyster, onion, flour, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, oyster, onion, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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