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Scalloped Mutton

A dish of cold cooked mutton layered with bread crumbs, gravy, and butter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scalloped Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold cooked mutton into small pieces.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place a layer of bread crumbs in the bottom of a shallow dish.

  2. Add a layer of mutton, then pour gravy over it.

  3. Moisten the bread crumbs in melted butter and spread them over the top.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crumbs are brown.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold cooked mutton
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meaty flavor.
Bread crumbs
Form the layers and soak up gravy, while the buttered top crisps and browns in the oven.
Gravy
Adds moisture that keeps the mutton from drying out as it bakes.
Melted butter
Coats the crumbs, helping them brown and adding richness to the top.

The step that matters

Bake until the crumbs are brown. Browning on the surface comes from dry heat and fat acting on the crumbs. Pulling the dish too early leaves the top pale and soft, while leaving it too long can scorch the crumbs before the mutton is heated through.

“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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