Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Boiled Mutton
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the meat
Have the butcher bone the mutton.
Wipe the meat with a damp cloth, roll it tightly, and tie it with twine or muslin.
Cook
Put the bones in a pot with ½ teaspoon of salt and enough water to cover the meat.
Heat the pot to boiling point.
Weigh the meat and allow 15 minutes for it to heat through, plus 15 minutes for each pound.
Place the meat in the pot and boil quickly, then reduce heat until water bubbles on one side.
Keep the pot covered.
Optionally, add barley, rice, onion, carrot, or celery to the water for flavor.
Finish the broth
When done, remove 1 pint of liquid and thicken it with flour mixed with cold water.
Season to taste and boil for 5 minutes.
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.
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Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together10,173 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Barley + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together784 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together21,601 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Barley + celerytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together571 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
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Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,518 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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 as it simmers slowly in water.
- Flour
- Thickens the removed cooking liquid into a light gravy when mixed with cold water first.
- Barley or rice
- Optional grain that adds body and substance to the broth as it cooks.
The step that matters
Keep the water at a gentle bubble. After a brief hard boil, lowering the heat to a gentle simmer keeps the meat tender and prevents tough, dry fibres. Covering the pot holds in moisture and steady heat.
Swap the onion
The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, meat, flour, barley, carrot, celery):
- Leekfits better
- Turnipfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, meat, flour, barley, carrot, celery. 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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