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Harico of Mutton

A mutton stew with gravy, carrots, turnips, onions, and silver onions, finished with wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Harico of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Cut the mutton into thin chops.

  2. Flour and fry the chops in butter until brown.

  3. Drain the chops on a sieve and place them in a stewpan.

Make the stew

  1. Cover the chops with gravy made from the frying pan.

  2. Add the whole onion and turnips, then stew until the meat is tender.

  3. Remove the chops and strain the gravy, skimming off the fat.

  4. In the stewpan, mix butter and flour until smooth, then gradually add the gravy while stirring.

  5. Return the chops to the stewpan with a glass of wine.

  6. Add blanched carrots, turnips, and silver onions, seasoning with pepper and salt.

  7. Stew gently for 15 minutes, then serve the chops with sauce and vegetables.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

  5. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Its connective tissue softens during stewing, making the meat tender and juicy.
Flour
Coats the chops and thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce when cooked in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, and browns the floured chops for color.
Turnips
Hold their shape during stewing and add a mildly sweet, earthy flavor to the sauce.
Carrots
Add sweetness and color, and hold their texture through the final stew.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the floured chops until brown. Browning the flour and meat surface creates flavorful Maillard compounds that give the gravy its depth. Pale frying leaves the sauce bland and weak in color.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, butter, turnip, pepper, wine, carrot. 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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