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Barbecue Sauce for Mutton

A sauce made from mustard, cayenne pepper, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, and vinegar, served with roasted mutton.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Barbecue Sauce for Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Roast the mutton as usual.

  2. One hour before serving, stick the meat all over with a sharp knife.

Sauce and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the meat.

  2. Cook very slowly until ready to 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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,482 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

Dry mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the mutton.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat that gives the sauce a peppery bite.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury depth and a tangy, fermented background flavour.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and body, helping the sauce cling to the meat.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances its sweetness.

The step that matters

Cook very slowly until ready to serve. Ketchup contains sugar, which can scorch on direct or high heat and turn bitter. Gentle, slow cooking keeps the sauce glossy and smooth while it waits, and stops the sugars from catching on the pan.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, pepper, sauce, ketchup, vinegar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, pepper, sauce, ketchup, 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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