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Haricot Mutton

A mutton stew cooked with onions, carrot, and spices, simmered in hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Haricot Mutton

Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Haricot Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wipe the meat with a damp cloth if necessary.

  2. Divide the meat into chops or trim pieces nicely.

  3. Cut the onions into rings.

  4. Prepare the vegetables by cutting them into small squares, slices, or fillets as desired.

Brown and stew

  1. Heat the dripping in a stew pan.

  2. Fry the meat lightly on both sides.

  3. Fry the onions with the meat.

  4. Remove the dripping from the meat.

  5. Add the vegetables, flour, salt, and pepper. Stir well.

  6. Gradually add the hot water. Stir until it boils.

  7. Simmer for 1 to 1½ hours, or until the meat is tender. Stir often to prevent burning.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + carrottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Its connective tissue softens during long simmering, making the meat tender.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, rich gravy as it heats.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, adding depth to the gravy.
Dripping
Fat for frying that carries flavour and helps the meat brown.

The step that matters

Frying the meat lightly on both sides. Browning the surface builds savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pieces should be dry and fried in a single layer so they brown rather than steam.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, carrot, 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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