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Haricot of Mutton

A slow‑cooked mutton stew with carrots, turnips, onions, and herbs in a savory stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Haricot of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the mutton into pieces and remove all fat.

  2. In a stewpan, melt a little butter over high heat and brown the meat until golden.

  3. Strain the fat into a frying pan.

Brown the vegetables

  1. Add the sliced carrots and turnips.

  2. Brown the vegetables.

Simmer and finish

  1. Add the browned vegetables to the mutton along with the bouquet garni, parsley, onions (one pricked with cloves), pepper, salt, and stock.

  2. Simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Remove excess grease.

  4. If the gravy is too liquid, remove the meat.

  5. Reduce the gravy by boiling it quickly.

  6. Add the meat back.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat, whose collagen softens into tender pieces during simmering.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the stew as they soften in the gravy.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and soften into the gravy, thickening the stew slightly.
Onions
Release sweetness and savoury depth into the stock as they cook.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy, carrying flavour from the meat and vegetables.

The step that matters

Reduce the gravy by boiling it quickly. Rapid boiling evaporates surplus liquid and concentrates flavour, so the gravy thickens without overcooking the meat. Too little reduction leaves the gravy thin and watery.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, carrot, turnip, parsley, clove, 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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