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Mutton, Minced

A sauce of minced mutton, onion, stock, butter, flour, walnut liquor, and mushroom ketchup served over macaroni.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mutton, Minced

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the mince

  1. In a pan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the chopped onion and sauté until soft.

  3. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute.

  4. Gradually add the stock, stirring until thickened.

  5. Add the minced mutton, walnut liquor, and season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve over cooked macaroni.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main body and meaty flavour of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flavour of the onion.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, cohesive sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that becomes the sauce.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it softens in the butter.

The step that matters

Stirring the stock into the flour. Adding the liquid gradually while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, butter, flour, 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.

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