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Mutton Stew

A stew of cold mutton simmered with water, basil, celery, salt, peppercorns, thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Basil and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 812 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Mutton Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Slice the cold mutton into thick pieces, trimming off sinew, gristle, and skin.

  2. Place the sliced mutton in a saucepan and reserve the scraps for future use.

Make the gravy

  1. In another saucepan, combine the scraps with 1 pint of boiling water, sweet basil, celery, salt, and peppercorns.

  2. Cover the saucepan and simmer for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour the gravy over the mutton.

  2. Warm the mutton slowly in the gravy.

  3. Remove the mutton and keep it warm.

  4. Dredge flour into the gravy to thicken.

  5. Simmer the gravy for 5 minutes.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Basil + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Flour + celerytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + basiltop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mutton + celerytop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together928 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Mutton + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
The main meat, kept moist and tender by gentle heating in the gravy.
Flour
Starch that thickens the gravy as it simmers.
Celery
Adds savory, aromatic flavor to the simmering broth.
Sweet basil
Adds herbal aroma to the broth.
Whole peppercorns
Add sharp, aromatic warmth to the broth.

The step that matters

Dredge the flour into the gravy. Flour lumps if dropped in all at once. Sprinkle it in gradually while stirring so the starch disperses, then simmer so it thickens smoothly and the raw flour taste cooks off.

Swap the basil

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Basilthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, 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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