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Mutton Pilau

A stew of mutton, onions, curry, raisins, and rice simmered in stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Pilau

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and onion

  1. Cut the mutton into chops and lightly fry in the butter.

  2. Slice and fry the onion until soft but not browned.

Make the curry

  1. Add the onion to a stewpan with stock and simmer for 1 hour.

  2. Stir in the curry powder, raisins, and lemon juice.

Cook the rice and serve

  1. Scald the rice, drain it, and cook with the remaining butter until absorbed.

  2. Combine the rice with the meat and cook gently until the rice is soft but not broken.

  3. Serve by piling the rice on a dish and arranging the meat on top.

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 + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Raisin + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together565 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main protein; frying first browns the surface and adds savory flavor.
Patna rice
Forms the bulk of the dish, absorbing stock and butter as it cooks until tender.
Butter
Carries fat for frying and cooking, adding richness and helping the rice grains stay separate.
Spanish onion
Softens during frying and simmering, adding sweetness and body to the stock base.
Curry powder
Adds warm spice aroma and flavor that infuses the stock and meat.
Sultana raisins
Add concentrated sweetness that contrasts with the spices.

The step that matters

Cooking the rice gently after combining. Rice that simmers too hard or stirs vigorously breaks apart and turns sticky, so it should cook gently until just soft and grains remain whole.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, butter, lemon, rice):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, butter, lemon, rice. 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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