Why it works: Carrot and turnip 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 ↓
Haricot Mutton
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Trim the neck of mutton and cut it into cutlets about ½ inch thick.
Peel and slice the onion.
Brown the meat
Melt the butter over medium heat in a stewpan.
Add the sliced onion to the butter.
Add the mutton cutlets to the pan.
Fry the cutlets until they are nicely browned on both sides.
Remove the cutlets from the pan.
Pour off excess grease, leaving the onion in the pan.
Make the sauce
Stir in the flour.
Gradually add the second stock, stirring until it boils.
Strain the sauce.
Return the cutlets to the stewpan with the sauce.
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.
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Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,002 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,585 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,555 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked 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
- Provides the main meat, which browns on the outside and becomes tender during slow cooking.
- Butter
- Carries the heat for frying and adds richness and browned flavour to the cutlets.
- Flour
- Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it is stirred and brought to the boil.
- Second stock
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce and adds savoury depth.
- Onion
- Softens in the fat and adds sweetness and aroma to the sauce.
The step that matters
Fry the cutlets until nicely browned on both sides. Browning through the Maillard reaction builds deep savoury flavour. Crowding the pan or not drying the cutlets causes steaming instead, leaving the meat grey and flat-tasting.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, butter, flour, carrot, turnip):
- Leekfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Shallotfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, butter, flour, carrot, turnip. 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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