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Cold Mutton

A savory sauce made with butter, flour, stock, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, spices, and cold mutton, served with bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,024 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cold Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Rub a saucepan with garlic or shallot.

  2. Melt butter in the saucepan, then add flour to create a roux.

  3. Gradually add stock or broth and vinegar, stirring to combine.

  4. Season with Worcestershire sauce, spices, pepper, and salt.

Add the mutton and serve

  1. Strain the sauce and add slices of cold mutton.

  2. Heat for 30 minutes, then add sliced pickled gherkins or capers.

  3. Serve with or without bread slices.

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. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + caperstop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,088 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour while it cooks into the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce with the butter as a roux, giving it body.
Stock or broth
Forms the liquid base that the roux thickens into a sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances its richness.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury depth and tang to the sauce.

The step that matters

Make the roux. Flour must cook briefly in the melted butter before liquid is added. Cooking it removes raw starch taste, and adding stock gradually while stirring prevents lumps and keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the capers

The recipe marks capers as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, vinegar, sauce, pepper, bread):

  1. Capersthe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, vinegar, sauce, pepper, bread. 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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