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Mutton, Curries, Etc

A stew of lamb cutlets with onion, turnips, peas, sugar, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,842 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton, Curries, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice the onion very thinly and place it in an earthenware casserole.

  2. Wipe and trim the cutlets, then lay them on top of the onion.

  3. Add the diced turnips, seasoning, and sugar.

  4. Pour in enough water to nearly cover the contents and cover with a lid.

Stew and serve

  1. Stew gently for 30 minutes.

  2. Add the freshly shelled peas and cook for an additional 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. Serve hot, garnished with finely-chopped parsley.

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. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Peas + turniptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,350 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,322 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb cutlets
Provide the meat, which becomes tender and flavourful during slow stewing.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a soft texture as they cook in the stew.
Onion
Softens and sweetens as it stews, building the base flavour of the broth.
Young turnips
Add mild sweetness and tender body to the stew.

The step that matters

Stewing gently with a lid on. Gentle, covered simmering keeps the meat tender and juicy and prevents the water from boiling away. Boiling hard would toughen the meat and make the stew cloudy.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, onion, sugar, turnip, parsley):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, onion, sugar, turnip, 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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