Skip to main content
Main

Spiced Mutton

A slow‑cooked mutton curry with curry powder, allspice, coriander, ginger, cloves, raisins, and chutney.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the mutton into walnut-sized pieces.

  2. Sprinkle the meat with a mixture of curry powder, allspice, coriander, ginger, and cloves.

  3. Dredge the meat with pepper.

Brown and simmer

  1. Melt some dripping in a pan.

  2. Fry the meat with the diced onions until golden brown.

  3. Pour off excess fat.

  4. Add the brown stock and shredded celery.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  6. Skim the surface.

  7. Cook until the meat is very tender, about 1-1.5 hours.

  8. Add the sultana raisins.

  9. Add salt to taste.

  10. Add chutney to taste.

  11. Blend rice flour with stock.

  12. Add the rice flour mixture to the pot.

  13. Simmer for half an hour before serving.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Coriander + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Allspice + coriandertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Lean meat that becomes tender and flavourful through long, slow simmering.
Onions
Browning in the fat builds sweetness and savoury depth in the curry base.
Rice flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Brown stock
Provides the liquid that carries the spices and tenderises the meat.
Sultana raisins
Add sweetness that balances the warm spices and sharpness of the chutney.

The step that matters

Pour off excess fat and skim the surface. Leaving too much fat makes the curry greasy, and skimming removes impurities that would cloud the sauce. Both keep the simmered sauce clean and balanced before the rice flour thickens it.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, celery, allspice, coriander, ginger, clove, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, celery, allspice, coriander, ginger, clove, pepper. 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.

More mutton curry recipes

Lucknow 3 See all 36 →

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipes