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Ragout of Mutton

A stew of mutton strips, sweetbreads, and peas in a gravy thickened with flour, finished with beaten eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Ragout of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

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

  2. Add the mutton strips 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, and green peas.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, and parsley, then cover with gravy.

  3. Cover with a lid and stew gently for 1 hour after boiling begins.

Thicken and serve

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

  2. Pour the thickened gravy over 2 beaten eggs, stir over 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender during slow stewing.
Eggs
Thicken the gravy as they set gently with heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the meat instead of running thin.
Lamb sweetbreads
Add a soft, rich texture that contrasts with the chewier mutton.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savoury depth that carries flavour through the stew.

The step that matters

Stewing gently after boiling begins. A vigorous boil toughens meat proteins and can break up the layered ingredients. Gentle heat lets collagen in the mutton slowly soften into tender meat while the dish stays intact.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, lamb, egg, pork, onion, pepper, parsley. 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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