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Haricot Mutton

A stew of mutton chops with onions, turnips, carrots, and pickles, simmered in stock and finished with ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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

  1. Divide the neck of mutton into chops, trim and shape them, and remove the fat.

  2. Slice the onions and cut the turnips and carrots into fancy shapes.

Cook

  1. In a clean frying pan, lightly fry the cutlets in butter over high heat without cooking them.

  2. Fry the vegetables in the same butter for 3-4 minutes without browning them.

  3. Place the cutlets in a stewpan, layer the vegetables on top, and cover with stock.

  4. Bring to a boil, skim off the fat, then simmer until the chops are tender.

  5. Season with pepper and salt, and finish with the ketchup and minced pickles.

Serve

  1. Serve the chops in a soup dish, pouring over the gravy and vegetables.

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. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton neck chops
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering in stock.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma to the stock and gravy as they soften.
Turnips
Add body and a mildly sweet, earthy flavour to the stewed vegetables.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness and color while holding their shape through simmering.
Mushroom or walnut ketchup
Adds concentrated savory depth and umami to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets without browning them. Brief high-heat frying sets the outside of the meat and adds flavour, while overcooking it now leaves it dry and tough before the long simmer. Vegetables fried in the same butter should only soften, since browning changes their flavour and can make the gravy bitter.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, carrot, butter, pepper, mushroom):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, carrot, butter, pepper, mushroom. 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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