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Mutton, Neck of Stewed with Oysters

A stew of mutton neck simmered with oyster liquor, anchovy essence, lemon, parsley, and peppercorns, thickened with white roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mutton, Neck of Stewed with Oysters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Wash the mutton to remove blood and dry it.

  2. Brown the meat in a little hot fat in a stewpan.

Make the stew

  1. Pour in the mutton stock and skim off the fat.

  2. Add the oyster liquor, anchovy essence, lemon juice, and parsley.

  3. Bring to a boil, add peppercorns, and cook until the meat is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Keep the meat hot on a dish, strain and skim the cooking liquid.

  2. Make the liquid up to 1 pint, thicken with white roux, and add the oysters.

  3. Pour the sauce around the meat and serve hot.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Mutton + anchovytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Anchovy + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,702 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Anchovy + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Slow cooking in liquid turns its connective tissue tender and rich.
Mutton stock
Provides the liquid base and savoury meaty flavour of the sauce.
Oysters
Add briny, savoury flavour and tender texture to the finished sauce.
White roux
Flour and fat thicken the cooking liquid into a smooth, body-rich sauce.
Anchovy essence
Adds deep savoury, salty umami notes that enrich the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with roux before adding the oysters. Roux must be fully blended into the simmering liquid to avoid lumps, and oysters should be added at the end and only heated gently, since prolonged boiling makes them tough and shrunken.

“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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