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Scrag, with Mushrooms

A slow‑cooked mutton scrag simmered in its own stock with mushrooms, onions, parsley, and browned flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Scrag, with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and brown the meat

  1. Wash the scrag end of the neck and dry it.

  2. Sprinkle the scrag with pepper and flour.

  3. Brown the scrag in hot fat.

Simmer the meat

  1. Place the browned scrag in a saucepan and cover it with liquor from boiled meat.

  2. Add peppercorns, washed mushroom trimmings, onion, and parsley to the saucepan.

  3. Add salt to the saucepan.

  4. Skim the surface before boiling.

  5. Boil and cook until the scrag is tender.

Make the mushroom stew

  1. Chop half a dozen medium-sized mushrooms.

  2. Stew the chopped mushrooms in some of the stock with a chopped shallot and parsley.

  3. Season the mushroom stew with pepper and salt.

  4. Thicken the mushroom stew with browned flour until the mushrooms are soft.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Strain the liquor from the saucepan.

  2. Skim the strained liquor.

  3. Reduce the strained liquor.

  4. Thicken the reduced liquor.

  5. Season the reduced, thickened liquor.

  6. Serve the meat on a hot dish.

  7. Spread the mushrooms over the meat.

  8. Pour some gravy around the meat.

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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton scrag
Its connective tissue softens during long simmering, giving tender, flavourful meat.
Mushrooms
Their savoury flavour and soft texture add body to the stew and topping.
Flour
Coats the meat for browning and thickens the liquor into gravy.
Browned flour
Thickens the mushroom stew and gravy and adds a toasted, nutty colour and flavour.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the cooking liquor.

The step that matters

Skim the surface before boiling. Skimming removes foam and coagulated proteins that would otherwise cloud the liquor and make the gravy greasy and murky.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, flour, meat, mushroom, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, flour, meat, mushroom, 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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