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Ragout of Mutton

A savory ragout of mutton, sweetbreads, and peas simmered in gravy and thickened with flour.

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 the meat and sweetbreads

  1. Fry the onion in plenty of dripping.

  2. Fry the mutton for 5 minutes after adding it to the pan.

  3. Parboil the sweetbreads, cool them in cold water, wipe them, and slice them.

  4. Fry the sweetbreads in the fat.

Stew

  1. Layer sliced pork in a saucepan, then add the mutton, sweetbreads, onion, green peas, pepper, salt and parsley.

  2. Cover with gravy and put a lid on the saucepan.

  3. Stew gently for 1 hour after boiling begins.

Thicken 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. 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
Provides the main body of the dish and, as it stews, becomes tender and rich in flavour.
Sweetbreads
Add a soft, creamy texture that contrasts with the firmer strips of mutton.
Eggs
Beaten eggs stirred into the hot gravy thicken it and give it a smooth, enriched body.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the meat and peas.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a bright, fresh flavour against the rich meat.

The step that matters

Stirring the eggs into the gravy. Egg proteins set with heat, so if the gravy is too hot or stirred too fast the eggs can curdle and turn grainy. Keep the heat low and stir steadily while adding the gravy to the eggs.

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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