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Ragout of Mutton

A slow‑cooked stew of mutton, sweetbreads, pork, onion, peas, and gravy thickened with flour and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 623 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Ragout of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Fry the onion in plenty of dripping until golden.

  2. Add the mutton and fry for 5 minutes.

  3. Parboil the sweetbreads, then cool in cold water, wipe, slice, and fry in the fat.

Stew

  1. Layer sliced pork in a saucepan, followed by mutton, sweetbreads, onion, green peas, pepper, salt, and parsley.

  2. Cover with gravy, place a lid on the saucepan, and stew gently for 1 hour after boiling.

Thicken and serve

  1. Remove the meat and sweetbreads, thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  2. Stir the thickened gravy into 2 beaten eggs over low heat for 1 minute, then pour over the meat and serve.

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. Lamb + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together623 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Mutton + lambtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Meat + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main body of meat that becomes tender during slow stewing.
Eggs
Beaten eggs stirred into the hot gravy thicken it and add richness.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat and peas.
Sweetbreads
Add a soft, creamy texture contrasting with the firmer mutton.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that seasons the stew as it cooks.

The step that matters

Stirring the thickened gravy into the eggs. Eggs thicken when heated gently but scramble if they get too hot or are added too fast. Keep the heat low and stir constantly so the sauce becomes smooth and creamy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, lamb, meat, egg, pork, peas, pepper):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, lamb, meat, egg, pork, peas, 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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