Why it works: Onion and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Ragout of Mutton
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the mutton into small slices.
In a stew pan, melt 3 tablespoons of butter and mix in 3 tablespoons of flour until smooth and hot. Add the meat and cook until browned.
Pour in the water and let it simmer.
Cook the vegetables
In a frying pan, heat 3 tablespoons of butter, then add the onion and turnip with 1 teaspoon of flour. Stir constantly until golden brown, then drain and add to the meat.
Simmer and serve
Simmer for 1.5 hours.
Optional: Add small cubes of potato 30 minutes before serving.
Garnish with rice, macaroni, or mashed potatoes before serving.
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.
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Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,874 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,252 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Provides the main meat; long simmering turns cheap, tough cuts tender.
- Butter
- Carries fat for browning and adds richness to the sauce.
- Flour
- Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied ragout.
- Onion
- Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it turns golden in the pan.
- White turnip
- Adds mild sweetness and a tender bite after simmering.
The step that matters
Browning the flour and butter with the meat. Cooking the flour in fat until it is hot and smooth prevents lumps and gives a deeper, toasted flavour. Browning the meat develops savory flavour through the Maillard reaction, which later carries into the sauce.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, flour, turnip, pepper):
- Leekfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, flour, turnip, 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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