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Mutton, Mince of Fresh

A minced mutton stew cooked with butter, flour, stock, onion, and served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mutton, Mince of Fresh

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Select tender, juicy mutton, trim off all fat, and cut the meat into tiny dice.

Cook

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan, fry the onion lightly, then add the diced mutton and cook gently for a few minutes until slightly browned.

  2. Stir in the flour, add the stock, and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Simmer very gently until the mutton is tender, about 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with triangles of thin toasted bread.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main body and meaty flavour of the dish, becoming tender with gentle simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and helps brown the mutton and onion when frying.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly bound sauce.
Stock
Supplies the liquid that cooks the mutton and forms the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer very gently until the mutton is tender. Vigorous boiling toughens meat and can make it dry and stringy, while slow, gentle simmering lets connective tissue soften so the mutton stays tender and juicy.

Swap the onion

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

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

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