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Of Mutton a LA Venison

A marinated and stewed mutton dish flavored with vinegar, spices, and served with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Of Mutton a LA Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove all rough fat from the mutton and place it in a deep dish.

  2. Rub the salt, celery salt, brown sugar, black pepper, English mustard, allspice, and sweet herbs into the meat.

  3. Pour the vinegar over the meat, cover tightly, and refrigerate for 4 to 5 days, turning and basting daily.

Stew and serve

  1. In a kettle, bring 1 quart of water to a boil and place an inverted shallow pan over it.

  2. Lay the marinated meat on the pan, cover the kettle tightly, and stew for 4 hours without letting the water touch the meat.

  3. Add 1 cup of hot water to the remaining marinate and baste the meat with it.

  4. When done, thicken the liquid with flour and strain through a fine sieve to serve with the meat.

  5. Serve with currant jelly as a relish.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton (in the method)
Is the main meat, which the long marinade and slow stewing make tender.
Vinegar
Acidifies the marinade, helping to tenderize the meat over several days.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar and spices.
English mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor that penetrates the meat during marinating.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a sauce to serve with the meat.

The step that matters

Stewing without the water touching the meat. If the meat sits in boiling water it becomes boiled and watery rather than gently steamed. Holding it above the water keeps it moist and concentrates its flavor.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, sugar, pepper, mustard, allspice, vinegar, flour):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, sugar, pepper, mustard, allspice, vinegar, flour. 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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