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Devilled Mutton

A savory dish of sliced mutton cooked in butter and jelly, finished with a vinegar‑mustard sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Devilled Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter and jelly in a frying pan over medium heat.

  2. When it hisses, add the mutton slices and heat slowly, turning several times for 5 minutes until hot but not crisp.

  3. Remove the mutton and keep warm.

Finish and serve

  1. To the pan, add vinegar, mustard, and salt; stir well.

  2. Serve the mutton with the sauce poured over it.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Butter + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness to the pan sauce and helps the mutton heat without drying.
Currant or grape jelly
Melts into the fat to add sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar.
Cold mutton slices
The main ingredient, heated gently so it warms through while staying tender.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that cuts through the sweetness and richness of the jelly and butter.
Prepared mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that gives the sauce its characteristic bite.

The step that matters

Heat the mutton slowly without crisping it. High heat or long cooking toughens and dries meat proteins and can brown the surface. Gentle, brief heating warms the slices through while keeping them moist and tender.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, currant, mutton, vinegar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Onionfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, currant, mutton, vinegar. 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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