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Haricot Mutton

A stew of mutton pieces browned and simmered with turnip and carrot in stock, seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Haricot Mutton

Why it works: Turnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Haricot Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Remove excess fat from the mutton and cut it into moderate pieces.

  2. Roll the pieces in seasoned flour.

Brown and fry

  1. Melt some Ariston Block Suet in a pan and fry each piece of mutton until nicely browned.

  2. Remove the browned mutton and place it in a casserole.

  3. In the same pan, add the turnip and carrot squares and fry them without browning.

  4. Add the fried vegetables to the mutton in the casserole.

Simmer and serve

  1. Cover the meat and vegetables with stock or water.

  2. Put the lid on and simmer slowly for two hours.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Flour + carrottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,029 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck end of mutton
Provides the meat, which becomes tender through long slow simmering.
Seasoned flour
Coats the meat so it browns well and helps thicken the cooking liquid.
Ariston block suet
Supplies fat for frying, adding richness and carrying flavour into the browning.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body as it softens during the slow simmer.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and colour, softening into the stew during simmering.

The step that matters

Fry the vegetables without browning. Browning the turnip and carrot would add bitter, roasted flavours and firmer texture that clash with the gentle, sweet character of a slow-simmered stew. Keeping them pale lets them soften evenly and blend into the sauce.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Parsnipfits about as well
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, turnip, 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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