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Necks of Mutton

A braised dish of mutton necks cooked with vegetables, spices, and sherry, served with fried potatoes and Poivrade sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Necks of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the upper part of the fillet of the mutton without loosening it from the bones.

  2. Lard the mutton closely and marinate in a cold marinade for at least 24 hours.

Braise

  1. Place the mutton in a braising pan with a drainer and garnish with carrot, onion, celery, parsley, cloves, and mace.

  2. Moisten with sherry or Madeira and stock.

  3. Cover with buttered paper and boil on the stove.

  4. After boiling, cover the pan and braise on moderate heat with live embers on the lid for about 2 hours, basting frequently.

Finish and serve

  1. Once done, transfer to a baking dish with some broth and place in the oven to dry the larding for 1-2 minutes.

  2. Glaze the mutton and serve garnished with fried potatoes and Poivrade sauce.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Carrot + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton necks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow braising.
Sherry or madeira
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the braising liquid.
Stock
Supplies moisture and savoury flavour for the braise.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the paper-covered braise brown gently.
Carrot, onion and celery
Build sweetness and aroma into the braising liquid as they soften.

The step that matters

Braising on moderate heat. Gentle, steady heat lets connective tissue in the mutton break down slowly into gelatin, giving tender meat. Boiling too hard toughens the fibres and can dry the surface, so keep the heat moderate and baste regularly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, clove):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, carrot, onion, celery, parsley, clove. 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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