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Neck of Mutton

A roasted neck of mutton seasoned with sage, carrot, and salt, served with a bone broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 480 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Neck of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and roast

  1. Sprinkle the boned neck of mutton with dried sage and season with salt.

  2. Roast the mutton in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

Make the broth

  1. Stew the bones and scrag gently until flavorful.

  2. Add the same herbs and a chopped carrot to the bones for mutton broth.

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. Sage + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together480 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Mutton + carrottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,878 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + sagetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and juicy when roasted slowly.
Dried sage
Adds an earthy, aromatic flavor that pairs well with rich lamb and mutton.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the broth made from the bones.

The step that matters

Roasting the mutton until cooked through. Mutton neck is a tough, fatty cut, and it needs enough time at moderate heat for the connective tissue to soften. Stopping early leaves it chewy, while cooking too hot can dry the outside before the center is done.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot. 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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