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Roast Mutton , Turkish Fashion

Roast mutton kebabs seasoned with salt, pepper, onion juice, and served with sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion 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 ↓

Roast Mutton , Turkish Fashion

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the mutton into large squares.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Baste with onion juice.

  4. Skewer the squares with long skewers.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil on a slow fire until cooked.

  2. Remove the skewers and place the meat on a dish.

  3. Pour sour cream over the meat.

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. Pepper + oniontop 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. Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,827 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

  5. Mutton + creamtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together550 recipes

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

Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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

Mutton
Provides the meat that becomes tender and juicy when slowly broiled.
Onion juice
Adds savory flavor and aroma to the meat as it bastes the surface.
Sour cream
Adds creamy richness and tangy acidity to the finished meat.

The step that matters

Broil on a slow fire until cooked. Slow, gentle heat lets the connective tissue in mutton soften and the interior cook through without drying or burning the outside. Fast high heat tends to toughen the meat and char the surface before the centre is done.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, cream. 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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