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Stuffed Breast of Mutton or Lamb

A breast of mutton or lamb stuffed with veal forcemeat, fried and simmered in stock with onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Breast of Mutton or Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Bone the meat and lay the forcemeat over it.

  2. Roll it up neatly and tie or skewer it.

  3. Fry quickly in a little dripping.

Braise and make the gravy

  1. Slice the onion and fry it.

  2. Put the onion into a pan with the bones and hot stock.

  3. Simmer gently for 1½ hours.

  4. Thicken the gravy with the flour.

  5. Season well and let it boil.

Serve

  1. Dish up the meat and strain the gravy over it.

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

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

  2. Mutton + vealtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

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

  4. Onion + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Breast of mutton or lamb
Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender during slow simmering.
Veal forcemeat
Adds moisture and richness inside the rolled meat as it cooks.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the stock and gravy.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that becomes the gravy, carrying flavour from the bones.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, coating gravy.
Dripping
Fat that browns the outside of the rolled meat during quick frying.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with the flour. Flour clumps if added raw to hot liquid. Mix it smoothly first, then let the gravy boil so the starch swells and thickens it evenly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, veal, pepper, flour. 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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