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Fricassee of Mutton

A creamy sauce of canned mutton, mushrooms, and milk served with fried bread triangles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fricassee of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mushroom sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour, pepper, and salt until well combined.

  3. Gradually add ¾ pint of cold milk, stirring until the mixture boils and thickens.

  4. Peel the mushrooms.

  5. Trim the ends of the mushroom stalks.

  6. Wash the mushroom peels and stalks.

  7. Place them in a small saucepan with about ½ cup of milk.

  8. Stew the mixture gently to extract the mushroom flavor.

  9. Strain the milk from the mushroom peels.

  10. Add the mushrooms to the sauce.

  11. Stir the strained milk into the sauce.

  12. Let them stew gently until tender.

Prepare the mutton and bread

  1. Open the canned mutton.

  2. Remove any fat from the mutton.

  3. Cut the mutton into small pieces.

  4. Cut the bread into small squares.

  5. Cut each square diagonally to form triangles.

  6. Heat 3 ounces of clarified drippings in a frying pan until hot.

  7. Fry the bread triangles until they are pale brown.

  8. Drain the fried bread on kitchen paper.

  9. Sprinkle a little salt over the fried bread.

  10. Keep the bread warm until serving.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Enriches the sauce and forms the base with flour for a smooth roux.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce when cooked with the butter.
Milk
Forms the liquid of the sauce and carries the mushroom flavor when stewed.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and tender texture to the sauce.
Mutton
Provides the main meat, cut small so it blends into the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the cold milk to the roux. Adding cold milk slowly while stirring lets starch granules disperse evenly before they swell, so the sauce thickens smooth instead of lumpy.

“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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