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Necks of Mutton

A braised dish of mutton necks cooked with mirepoix, wine, and stock, served with fried potatoes and Poivrade sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Necks of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Trim the necks of mutton and remove the gills from the fillet without loosening it from the bones.

  2. Lard the necks closely and marinate in a cold marinade for at least 24 hours.

Braise

  1. Place the necks in a braising pan with chopped carrot, onion, celery, cloves, and mace.

  2. Moisten with light wine mirepoix or sherry, and add stock.

  3. Cover with buttered paper and bring to a boil on the stove.

  4. Reduce heat, cover with a lid, and braise gently for about 2 hours, basting frequently.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer to a baking dish with some broth and place in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1-2 minutes to crisp the larding.

  2. Glaze and serve garnished with fried potatoes and Poivrade sauce.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Celery + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton necks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and moist during long gentle braising.
Stock
Supplies liquid for braising, building savoury flavour and keeping the meat moist.
Carrot, onion and celery
Aromatic base that flavours the braising liquid and the resulting sauce.
Sherry or madeira
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the braising liquid.
Larding fat (in the method)
Adds richness and moisture inside the lean meat and crisps on the surface in the oven.

The step that matters

Braising gently under a lid. A gentle simmer lets collagen in the neck break down into gelatin, making the meat tender. Boiling hard toughens muscle fibres and dries the meat, so keep the heat low and baste often.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, wine, carrot, onion, celery, clove, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, wine, carrot, onion, celery, clove, 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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