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Mutton Chops, Stewed in Their Own Gravy

Mutton chops stewed in a light gravy made from their own juices and water or broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton Chops, Stewed in Their Own Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Trim away all the fat from the mutton chops.

  2. Quickly dip each chop in cold water, sprinkle with pepper, and dredge both sides with flour.

Stew

  1. In a thick iron saucepan, add 1 tablespoon of water or broth for each chop.

  2. Lay the chops in a single layer, cover with a lid, and simmer gently for 1.5 hours.

  3. Turn the chops over halfway through cooking.

  4. If the gravy dries up, add 1 or 2 more tablespoons of water.

Finish

  1. Just before serving, add 1 teaspoon of chopped parsley to the gravy.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mutton + parsleytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,915 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
Slow simmering in liquid tenderises the tough meat until it becomes soft and juicy.
Flour
Coating the chops thickens the cooking liquid into a light gravy and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Keeping the chops in a single layer and simmering gently. Gentle heat over a long time breaks down connective tissue in the mutton without toughening the meat. Boiling hard would make the meat dry and stringy, and the gravy could scorch on the pan base.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

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