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Mutton Kebobbed

A roasted mutton dish with nutmeg, breadcrumbs, and 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: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton Kebobbed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut the loin of mutton into steaks and remove the fat and skin.

  2. Mix the grated nutmeg, salt, pepper, breadcrumbs, and herbs.

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

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

Roast and serve

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

  2. Prepare 1 pint of gravy, adding 2 tablespoons of ketchup and 1 teaspoon of flour.

  3. Bring the gravy to a boil and pour it over the mutton after skimming off the fat.

  4. Keep the meat hot until the gravy is ready.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Loin of mutton
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the rich meat flavor.
Egg yolks
Bind the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the steaks.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp coating that helps the outside brown during roasting.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, promoting browning and a golden surface.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat.

The step that matters

Skimming the gravy before pouring. Fat that rises to the surface of the gravy can make it greasy and split its texture. Skimming it off leaves a smoother, cleaner-tasting sauce that coats the meat well.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, 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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