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Loin Op Mutton, Stewed Like Venison

A stew of mutton loin cooked with onion, port wine, vinegar, herbs, and seasoned with pepper and salt, served with red currant jelly.

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 ↓

Loin Op Mutton, Stewed Like Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and stew

  1. Skin and bone the loin of mutton.

  2. Place it in a stewpan and pour 1 pint of water over it.

  3. Add the onion, port wine, vinegar, and a bunch of herbs.

  4. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  5. Bring to a boil, then let it stew for 3 hours, turning it often.

  6. Boil down the bones and trimmings to make stock, adding it to the mutton as needed.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the sauce and pour it over the mutton in the dish.

  2. Serve with red currant jelly.

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

Loin of mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow stewing.
Port wine
Adds depth, sweetness and acidity to the sauce as it reduces.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavour of the meat and sauce.
Onion
Contributes savoury sweetness and aroma to the stewing liquid.

The step that matters

Bringing to a boil, then holding a gentle stew. Boiling vigorously toughens muscle fibres and can leave the meat dry, while a gentle simmer over 3 hours slowly breaks down connective tissue into tender, moist meat.

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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