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Mutton Pudding

A baked dish of sliced mutton and potatoes layered with flour, onion, and gravy, covered with suet crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mutton Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold boiled or roast mutton into small slices.

  2. Slice a few potatoes.

  3. Dip the meat slices into a mixture of salt, pepper, flour, and finely chopped onion.

Assemble and cook

  1. Butter a basin and line it with suet crust.

  2. Fill the basin with alternate layers of mutton and potatoes.

  3. Pour in 1 cup of gravy or stock.

  4. Cover with crust and cook.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 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

Mutton
Provides the main meat flavour and bulk of the filling.
Potatoes
Add starchy body and absorb some of the gravy as the pudding cooks.
Flour
Coats the meat slices and helps thicken the juices into a richer gravy.
Suet crust
Forms the enclosing pastry that holds the filling and its juices while it steams.
Gravy or stock
Supplies moisture and savoury flavour that keeps the filling tender.

The step that matters

Cover with crust and cook. The crust must seal the basin well so steam and juices stay inside. If it leaks, the filling dries out and the gravy is lost, leaving the meat tough.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, potato, pepper, flour. 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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