Skip to main content
Main

Entrees of Mutton

Braised mutton cutlets larded with bacon and seasoned with peppercorns and mace, cooked slowly in broth and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Entrees of Mutton

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. Insert a larding pin halfway through each cutlet and place a strip of bacon inside, repeating until each cutlet has eight strips of bacon.

  2. Stew the trimmings in a large stewpan or fricandeau pan.

Braise

  1. Arrange the cutlets in a circular order with the bone ends pointing to the center.

  2. Cover the cutlets with the remaining trimmings.

  3. Garnish with sliced carrots, onion, parsley, and celery.

  4. Season with peppercorns and mace.

  5. Moisten with brandy and enough broth or stock to cover the cutlets.

  6. Cover with buttered paper and a lid.

  7. Braise gently on a slow fire or in the oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 1.5 hours.

  8. Once nearly tender, remove from heat and let cool partially in the liquid.

Finish

  1. Carefully take out each cutlet with a skimmer and place them in rows on a large dish.

  2. Press slightly with another dish to create an even surface.

  3. Let them cool completely before trimming.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during slow braising.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor as it melts into the meat during braising.
Brandy
Adds aromatic flavor to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Braise gently and remove when nearly tender. Slow, gentle heat breaks down the connective tissue in mutton without drying the meat. Cooking too hard toughens the muscle fibers and can leave the cutlets dry and stringy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, onion, clove, parsley, celery, brandy. 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.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipes