Skip to main content
Main

Gravy for Mutton

A savory gravy made from mutton bones, vegetables, and seasonings, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Gravy for Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the gravy

  1. Place mutton bones in a pot with garlic.

  2. Add shallot, carrot, celery (or celery seeds), and water or stock.

  3. Stew gently for 2 hours.

  4. Strain the gravy and thicken it with flour.

  5. Add sugar browning, ketchup, and port if using.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat on a dish, pouring the gravy around it.

  2. Garnish with glazed onions.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Shallot + carrottop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together803 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 bones
Release meat flavour and gelatin into the stock during long gentle stewing.
Flour
Thickens the strained liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied gravy.
Sugar browning
Adds colour and a deeper, slightly sweet caramel flavour to the gravy.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity that rounds out the savoury gravy.

The step that matters

Thickening the strained gravy with flour. Flour must be mixed in smoothly, ideally with cold liquid or a little fat first, and then simmered. Added directly to hot liquid it clumps, and unsimmered it tastes raw and floury.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, shallot, carrot, celery, flour, sugar, ketchup):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, shallot, carrot, celery, flour, sugar, 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.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipes