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Mutton — Continued

A savory mutton sausage made with beef suet, anchovies, oysters, and seasonings, formed into balls or stuffed into skins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,092 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mutton — Continued

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped mutton, beef suet, anchovies, oysters, boiled onion, grated bread, and season with crushed mace, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add the liquid from the oysters and 2-3 eggs to form a mass.

  3. Shape the mixture into balls or cakes, or stuff into sausage skins.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat boiling fat in a pan and fry the shaped sausages until golden brown.

  2. Serve on a folded napkin over a dish.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture together so it holds its shape when formed and fried.
Grated bread
Absorbs moisture and gives the mass body, keeping the filling tender rather than dense.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and gives a rich texture as it cooks.
Mutton
Forms the main meat base, providing the savory flavor and bulk of the sausage.

The step that matters

Forming the mass. The mixture must be bound with just enough egg and liquid to hold its shape. Too little binder lets the shapes crumble in the hot fat, while too much makes the mass wet and dense.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, beef, oyster, onion, bread, egg, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, beef, oyster, onion, bread, egg, pepper. 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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