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Mutton with Turnips

A slow‑cooked mutton served with mashed turnips and optional sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and turnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,558 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Mutton with Turnips

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the meat

  1. Simmer the mutton gently for 2 to 2.5 hours after it begins to boil.

  2. Boil the smoked ox-tongue until tender, if using.

Prepare the turnips

  1. Prepare turnips by boiling and mashing them.

  2. Mold the mashed turnips into half-egg shapes using a tablespoon.

Serve

  1. Serve the mutton with the sauces and the turnips hot.

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. Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,558 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Turnip + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Mutton + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Slow simmering turns the tough joint tender and gives the meat its rich flavour.
Turnips
Boiling and mashing gives a soft, moist texture and a mild sweetness that suits the rich meat.
Smoked ox-tongue
Adds smoky, savoury flavour and a firm, meaty texture when boiled until tender.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sauce. 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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