Skip to main content
Main

Mutton Steaks Stewed

A stew of thinly sliced mutton, rice, onions, and pepper cooked slowly in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rice and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Steaks Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the mutton in a saucepan.

  2. Add whole pepper, rice, onions, and enough water to cover the ingredients.

  3. Stew slowly, skimming often.

  4. Once the meat is tender, remove the onions.

  5. Serve the rice on a dish and place the mutton on top.

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. Rice + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,433 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mutton + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender and flavourful during slow stewing.
Rice
Absorbs the cooking liquid and soaks up flavour, forming the base the mutton is served on.
Onions
Release sweetness and aroma into the stew as they cook in the liquid.

The step that matters

Stew slowly, skimming often.. Slow simmering keeps the meat tender rather than tough, and skimming removes foam and scum that would otherwise cloud the broth and taint its flavour.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, rice. 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.

More mutton stew recipes

with Rice 14Irish 9with Carrots 5with Dumplings 4with Lettuce and Peas 4with Turnips 3 See all 234 →

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipes