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Ragout of Mutton

A stew of mutton strips, 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 strips and fry for 5 minutes.

  3. Parboil the sweetbreads, then cool them in cold water.

  4. Wipe the sweetbreads dry and slice them.

  5. Fry the sliced sweetbreads in the fat.

Stew

  1. Layer sliced pork, mutton strips, sweetbreads, fried onion, and green peas in a saucepan.

  2. Season with pepper, salt, and parsley.

  3. Cover with gravy and a lid, then stew gently for 1 hour after boiling.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the meat and sweetbreads.

  2. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  3. Stir the thickened gravy into 2 beaten eggs over low heat for 1 minute.

  4. Pour the mixture 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 the dish as tender, slow-stewed meat strips.
Sweetbreads
Add a soft, creamy texture that contrasts with the firmer mutton.
Eggs
Thicken the gravy gently when stirred in over low heat, adding richness.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that carries through the long stew.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, nutty flavor.
Green peas
Add sweetness and color to the stew.

The step that matters

Stirring the gravy into the eggs over low heat. Egg proteins set when heated, so over high heat or without steady stirring the eggs can scramble and turn the sauce grainy. Gentle heat keeps the mixture smooth and lightly thickened.

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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