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To Stew Mutton

A mutton stew made with thick slices, onions, carrot, eschalot, broth, butter, flour, and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Stew Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut thick slices from any part of the mutton.

Stew

  1. Place the slices in a stewpan with salt, pepper, onions, carrot, and eschalot.

  2. Cover the meat with broth.

  3. Cover the stewpan tightly.

  4. Stew for 20 minutes to 1 hour, but not longer.

  5. Turn the steaks halfway through cooking.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, add butter rolled in flour and mushroom ketchup.

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. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Carrot + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,796 recipes

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

  5. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during slow stewing in liquid.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth as they soften in the broth.
Butter rolled in flour
Thickens the stew liquid into a smoother, richer sauce when added near the end.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds a concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Stewing time. Stewing too long can make the meat stringy and dry, so the record's limit of no longer than 1 hour matters. Tightly covering the pan keeps moisture in so the meat cooks gently in its own juices and broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, carrot, butter, flour, mushroom, ketchup):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, carrot, butter, flour, mushroom, ketchup. 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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