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Stewed Mutton Chop

A slow‑cooked mutton chop simmered in water with onion, salt, pepper, and a flour‑thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Stewed Mutton Chop

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim away nearly all the fat from the chop and place it in a jar.

  2. Add the minced onion, season with salt and pepper, and pour in enough cold water to cover the chop.

  3. Cover the jar closely and set it in a saucepan of water.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring the water to a boil and let it cook for 1½ hours.

  2. Once done, place the chop on a hot plate.

  3. Skim the fat from the gravy, thicken it with flour, and add gravy colouring.

  4. Bring the gravy to a boil, cook for two minutes, and pour it over the chop.

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

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

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

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chop
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle cooking in liquid.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it heats, giving it body.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the cooking liquid as it stews with the meat.

The step that matters

Covering the jar closely and setting it in simmering water. A tight seal and gentle water-bath heat keep the liquid from evaporating and cook the meat slowly, so it turns tender rather than tough and dry.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, 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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