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Broiled Mutton

Broiled mutton slices served with a tomato sauce, butter, pepper, sea salt, and cracker dust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Broiled Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut slices from a leg of mutton.

  2. Broil the slices quickly over a clear fire.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Make the sauce

  1. Cook and strain tomato sauce through a colander.

  2. Add butter, pepper, and coarse sea salt to the sauce.

  3. Sprinkle with cracker dust.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the mutton and serve very hot.

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

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

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the meat that is broiled to a seared, browned exterior while staying juicy inside.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and body, forming the moist sauce that coats the meat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Cracker dust
Thickens the sauce slightly and adds a toasty, dry texture on top.

The step that matters

Broil the slices quickly over a clear fire. High, direct heat browns the surface fast so the inside stays juicy. Slow or weak heat lets the meat dry out and turn grey before it browns.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Tomatothe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, sauce, butter. 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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