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Boiled Mutton and Turnips

A boiled leg of mutton served with boiled turnips and caper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and turnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,558 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Boiled Mutton and Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the leg of mutton until tender.

  2. Peel and chop the turnips, then boil them until soft.

  3. Serve the mutton with the boiled turnips and drizzle with caper sauce.

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. Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,558 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Turnip + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Mutton + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through long gentle boiling.
Turnips
Soften when boiled, adding mild sweetness and a starchy, tender texture to the plate.
Caper sauce
Adds a sharp, acidic note that contrasts with the rich, savory meat.

The step that matters

Boiling the mutton until tender. Mutton is a tough cut with connective tissue that needs prolonged, gentle simmering to break down into tender meat. Stopping early leaves it chewy, while a hard rolling boil can toughen the proteins and dry the surface.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sauce. 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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