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To Stew Mutton

A stew of thick mutton slices cooked with onions, carrot, shallot, broth, butter, flour, and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Stew Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place thick slices of mutton in a stewpan.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Add sliced onions, carrot, and shallot.

Stew

  1. Cover the meat with broth and bring to a simmer.

  2. Let it stew for 20 minutes to 1 hour, but do not overcook.

  3. Cover the stewpan tightly and turn the steaks halfway through cooking.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, mix a little butter with flour and add it to the stew.

  2. Stir in 2 tablespoons of mushroom ketchup before 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. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender as the slices stew slowly in liquid.
Butter and flour
Flour thickens the cooking liquid into a richer sauce, and butter adds fat and smooth body.
Broth
Supplies the liquid that cooks the meat gently and forms the base of the sauce.
Onions
Soften during stewing and add sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Stewing without overcooking. Mutton is tough connective tissue that needs slow, moist heat to turn tender, but prolonged boiling toughens and dries muscle fibres. Keeping a gentle simmer and checking early helps the meat stay tender and juicy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, carrot, shallot, butter, flour, mushroom):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, carrot, shallot, butter, flour, mushroom. 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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