Skip to main content
Main

Haricot Mutton

A stew of mutton cutlets cooked in stock with pepper, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Haricot Mutton

Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Haricot Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the bones from the mutton cutlets, leaving more fat and cutting them thicker.

Brown and stew

  1. Fry the cutlets over high heat until browned.

  2. Place the cutlets in a stewpan with the second stock, pepper, salt, and sugar.

  3. Cover and stew gently over low heat until tender.

Finish the sauce

  1. Strain off enough stock for the sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + sugartop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together726 recipes

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

Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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 cutlets
Provide the meat, whose fat keeps the cutlets moist and flavourful during stewing.
Second stock
Supplies the liquid that gently cooks the cutlets and forms the sauce.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the savoury meat and seasoning.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets over high heat until browned. Browning through the Maillard reaction creates deep, savoury flavour on the surface. Pale cutlets tasted flat, and the sauce will lack depth.

“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 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipesCurried MuttonCurried Mutton9 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipes