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Mutton Cutlets Harricoed

A stew of mutton cutlets simmered with onions, carrots, turnips, parsley, and bay leaves in a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets Harricoed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown

  1. Trim the fat from the mutton cutlets and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Melt 2 ounces of butter in a stewpan over moderate heat.

  3. Add the cutlets and cook, turning occasionally, until lightly browned.

  4. Stir in 1 good spoonful of flour and mix well.

  5. Gradually add 1 quart of water, stirring until it boils.

Simmer the stew

  1. Add the onions, carrots, turnips, parsley, and bay leaves.

  2. Simmer until the vegetables are tender, then skim the surface.

Serve

  1. Remove the cutlets and arrange them in a crown on a serving dish.

  2. Place the vegetables in the center and pour the sauce over the dish.

  3. For added flavor, melt ¼ ounce of powdered sugar in a stewpan, then add 2 ounces of butter and the vegetables, tossing until glazed before serving.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 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

Mutton cutlets
Provide the meat, which browns and becomes tender as it simmers.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor when the cutlets are browned.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce as it is stirred in.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma to the broth as they soften.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color, and become tender in the simmering liquid.
Turnips
Add body and a mild sweetness as they cook until tender.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour and water. Flour must be cooked in the fat before liquid is added, and the water must be added gradually while stirring, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, pepper, flour, onion, carrot, turnip. 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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