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To Dress a Loin Op Mutton Like Venison

A method of braising a mutton loin with water, onion, port wine, vinegar, thyme, parsley, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

To Dress a Loin Op Mutton Like Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the mutton

  1. Place the mutton in a stewpan or braising pan.

  2. Add water, onion, port wine, and vinegar.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Add thyme, parsley, pepper, and salt.

  5. Reduce heat.

  6. Let it stew for 3 hours, turning it often.

Finish with gravy

  1. Make gravy from the bones.

  2. Add the gravy to the mutton as needed.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton loin
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long slow stewing.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the braising liquid and gravy.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps soften the meat's texture.
Onion
Releases savoury sweetness and aroma into the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Keep the stew at a gentle simmer. Once the liquid boils, reduce the heat as instructed. Tough connective tissue in mutton breaks down slowly at low temperatures, while a hard boil toughens the muscle fibres and dries the surface. Turning the meat often keeps it evenly moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, clove, port wine, vinegar, thyme, parsley, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, clove, port wine, vinegar, thyme, parsley, pepper. 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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