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Oxford John

A mutton stew made with stale leg of mutton, butter, coulis, lemon juice, and seasonings, served with strained sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Oxford John

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut the leg of mutton into thin collops.

  2. Remove all sinews.

  3. Season the collops with salt, pepper, and mace.

  4. Add shredded parsley, thyme, and eschalots.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the collops.

  3. Stir until three-quarters cooked.

  4. Add coulis.

  5. Add lemon juice.

  6. Thicken with flour.

  7. Let simmer for 4-5 minutes.

  8. Serve with strained sauce over the collops.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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, which becomes tender when cut thin and cooked gently in sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the collops brown lightly and carrying flavour through the dish.
Coulis
Supplies the liquid base and body of the sauce, giving it moisture and flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich sauce and balances the meat.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the collops instead of running thin.

The step that matters

Thicken with flour. Flour must be cooked through in the hot liquid to thicken smoothly; added raw or in clumps, it leaves lumps and a floury taste. Simmering afterwards also lets the starch swell fully.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, parsley, thyme, butter, lemon, 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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