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Necks of Mutton

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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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 ↓

Necks of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the upper part of the fillet of the mutton without loosening it from the bones.

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

Braise

  1. Place the mutton in a braising pan with a drainer and garnish with carrot, onion, celery, parsley, cloves, and mace.

  2. Moisten with white wine or sherry and stock.

  3. Cover with buttered paper and boil on the stove.

  4. Put the lid on and braise on moderate heat with embers for about 2 hours, basting frequently.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer to a baking dish with some broth and place in the oven to dry the larding for 1-2 minutes.

  2. Glaze and serve garnished with fried potatoes shaped like olives or balls, and pour Poivrade Sauce underneath.

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. Celery + parsleytop 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 necks
Long, slow braising makes the meat tender and gives it a rich, moist texture.
Larding fat (in the method)
Fat threaded through the meat melts during cooking, keeping the lean meat moist and flavorful.
White wine or sherry
Acidity and aromatic compounds add depth to the braising liquid and help balance the meat's richness.
Stock
Forms the braising liquid that gently cooks the meat and builds savory flavor in the sauce.
Carrot, onion and celery
Aromatic vegetables release sugars and savory compounds into the braising liquid as they cook.

The step that matters

Braising with a lid on at moderate heat. Gentle, covered heat over about 2 hours breaks down connective tissue slowly. Boiling hard or drying out the pan can toughen the meat and reduce the liquid needed for the sauce.

Swap the mace

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

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

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