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Mutton, Mince Of, Baked

A baked dish of finely minced mutton mixed with breadcrumbs, parsley, shallot, egg, and mushroom ketchup, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton, Mince Of, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Grease a plain mold or round cake tin with butter or fat and lightly cover it with browned breadcrumbs.

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, mix the minced mutton, white breadcrumbs, parsley, and shallot.

  2. Season the mixture with salt and pepper, then add the egg, mushroom ketchup, and enough gravy to moisten it slightly.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture into the prepared tin and bake gently for 1 to 1.5 hours.

  2. Carefully unmold and serve with good gravy.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked mutton
Forms the main body of the dish and gives its meaty flavour.
Egg
Binds the mixture so it holds its shape when unmolded.
White breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the mince a soft, tender texture.
Gravy
Moistens the mixture so it stays juicy during gentle baking.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury, umami depth to the mince.

The step that matters

Bake gently at a low temperature. Cooked mutton is already done, so a low oven heats it through without toughening or drying the proteins. High heat would shrink and dry the mixture, and the egg could set too firmly and turn grainy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, shallot, egg, pepper, mushroom, ketchup, butter):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, shallot, egg, pepper, mushroom, ketchup, butter. 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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