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Mutton Kebobbed

A roasted mutton dish seasoned with nutmeg, herbs, and breadcrumbs, served with a ketchup-floured gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mutton Kebobbed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Remove all fat and skin from the loin of mutton and cut it into steaks.

  2. Mix grated nutmeg, salt, pepper, bread crumbs, and herbs in a bowl.

  3. Dip the steaks in the egg yolks and sprinkle the mixture over them.

  4. Reassemble the steaks and tie them together on a small spit.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the mutton over a hot fire, basting with butter and meat juices.

  2. Prepare 4 pints of gravy, adding ketchup and flour, and bring to a boil.

  3. Skim off the fat from the gravy and pour it over the mutton before serving.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Butter and flour 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 loin
Provides the meat that is cut into steaks and roasted.
Egg yolks
Bind the seasoning mixture so it adheres to the steaks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb meat juices and add a light, crisp coating as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown during basting.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the mutton.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the gravy.

The step that matters

Roasting over a hot fire with basting. Egg yolk and bread crumb coatings can scorch or brown unevenly if the fire is too fierce. Regular basting with butter and juices keeps the surface moist and promotes even browning.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, bread, egg, butter, ketchup, flour. 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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