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Stewed Mutton with Peas

A stew of mutton, peas, lettuce, onion, and stock thickened with flour and butter, flavored with Worcestershire sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Stewed Mutton with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lettuce and cut the heart and best leaves into pieces.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the lettuce pieces, sliced onion, and shelled peas.

  3. Add the mutton cut into pieces and pour in the stock.

Stew and finish

  1. Simmer gently for three hours.

  2. Thicken the stew with flour and butter, then add Worcestershire sauce.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle simmering.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a soft texture to the finished stew.
Lettuce
Softens as it cooks, adding body and a mild, sweet flavour to the stew.
Flour
Thickens the stewing liquid into a rich, smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that helps smooth and thicken the sauce with the flour.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for three hours. A gentle simmer breaks down the connective tissue in mutton slowly, making it tender. Boiling hard toughens the meat and can break up the peas and lettuce.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, onion, flour, butter, sauce, mutton):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, onion, flour, butter, sauce, mutton. 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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