Skip to main content
Main

Haricot Mutton

A mutton stew with onions, carrot, turnip, and flour, simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Haricot Mutton

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 the mutton

  1. Cut the mutton into neat pieces after ensuring it is fresh and clean.

  2. Melt the dripping in a saucepan over medium heat.

  3. Add the mutton and fry until browned, turning frequently to prevent burning.

  4. Peel the onions and cut them into rings, then add them to the mutton and fry.

  5. Peel the turnip, scrape the carrot, wash, and cut them into small squares.

  6. Remove the dripping from the mutton and set it aside.

Make the stew

  1. Add the flour, pepper, salt, and vegetables to the mutton; mix well.

  2. Gradually add warm water, stirring until it boils.

  3. Simmer for 1 hour, stirring often to prevent burning.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked 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 rich meat base, which becomes tender during long simmering.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy as it simmers.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, adding savoury depth to the stew.
Dripping
Fat for browning the mutton, building flavour through surface caramelisation.
Turnip
Holds its shape in the stew while adding mild, earthy sweetness.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the stew as it cooks.

The step that matters

Frying the mutton until browned. Browning through the fat creates flavour compounds via the Maillard reaction. Turning often prevents scorching on the pan, which would leave bitter notes in the gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, flour, carrot, turnip, pepper):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, carrot, turnip, 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.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipes