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Mutton, Minced

A stew of minced mutton cooked with onion, stock, butter, flour, walnut liquor, and served over macaroni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Mutton, Minced

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the onion until lightly browned.

  3. Add the flour and brown it as well.

  4. Stir in the stock and add the walnut liquor and seasoning.

  5. Simmer gently for 10 minutes.

Cook the mutton and serve

  1. Add the minced mutton, reduce heat to just below simmering, and let it cook for at least 30 minutes.

  2. Arrange the cooked macaroni in a border on a plate, place the minced mutton in the center, and serve.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Walnut + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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 flavor and the substance of the dish.
Flour
Browned with the onion, it thickens the stock into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Carries the onion and flour and adds richness to the sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries the meat's savory flavor.
Onion
Frying until browned adds sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the flour. Flour cooked in butter must brown enough to lose its raw taste, but not so far that it turns bitter. Stirring steadily prevents scorching and lumps before the stock goes in.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, butter, flour, mushroom, 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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