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Fricasseed Mutton with Eggplant Fruit

A slow‑cooked mutton dish flavored with eggplant and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fricasseed Mutton with Eggplant Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Season the mutton pieces with salt and pepper.

  2. Heat a frying pan and add the mutton; toss until it hisses.

  3. Add the butter and fry the mutton until browned.

Prepare the eggplant

  1. Trim and slice the eggplants.

  2. Rub the eggplant slices with salt and let them sit to extract bitter juice.

  3. Drain the eggplant slices.

Cook and serve

  1. Remove the mutton from the pan and keep it warm.

  2. Fry the eggplant slices in the remaining fat until browned.

  3. Place the mutton on a hot dish, arrange the fried eggplant around it, and serve immediately.

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. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Mutton + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Main protein; browning in the pan builds savory flavor and a tender, juicy texture when not overcooked.
Butter
Fat for frying that carries heat evenly and adds richness and browning to the mutton and eggplant.
Eggplant (in the method)
Absorbs fat as it fries and turns soft and creamy, providing the dish's vegetable body.
Clear broth
Liquid base that adds savory depth; listed in the record but its use in the steps is not stated.

The step that matters

Salting and draining the eggplant. Salt draws out bitter juices and excess water from the eggplant. Draining and drying the slices before frying lets them brown instead of steaming in the fat.

“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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