Skip to main content
Main

Mutton, Curried

A spiced mutton curry with almonds, lime, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Saffron and cardamom match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Mutton, Curried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Pound the green ginger with a little ghee.

  2. Season the ginger with salt.

  3. Rub the ginger into the mutton cut into thin slices.

  4. Let the meat marinate for 30 minutes.

Cook the curry

  1. Fry the onions in hot ghee until lightly browned.

  2. Add the marinated meat to the stewpan with garlic, ground cloves, cardamom, and pepper.

  3. Fry until cooked, ensuring onions do not burn.

  4. Stir in the cream, ground almonds, saffron, lime juice, and salt to taste.

  5. Cover and cook slowly for 20 minutes.

  6. Serve with plainly boiled rice.

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. Saffron + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Clove + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,114 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Ginger + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,114 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Almond + saffrontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through slow cooking in the sauce.
Pounded almonds
Thicken the sauce and add body and a mild nutty richness.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the sauce.
Onions
Browning in ghee builds a sweet, savoury base for the sauce.
Lime juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, spiced sauce.
Green ginger
Adds a sharp, aromatic warmth that penetrates the meat when rubbed in.

The step that matters

Fry the onions until lightly browned without burning. Onions scorch easily in hot fat, and burnt sugars turn the sauce bitter. Keeping them lightly golden builds a sweet, savoury base for the curry.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, ghee, almond, ginger, saffron, clove, cardamom):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, ghee, almond, ginger, saffron, clove, cardamom. 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 recipesAlmond SoupAlmond Soup60 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipes