Name: Spiced Shoulder of Mutton
Ingredients: 1 tender shoulder of mutton, boned; 2 ounces brown sugar per pound of meat; ¼ teaspoon cloves per pound of meat; 1 teaspoon mace per pound of meat; 1 teaspoon pepper per pound of meat; ½ teaspoon ginger per pound of meat; 2 teaspoons coarse sea salt per pound of meat; 1½ pints good beef gravy; beef broth for stewing

Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Shoulder of Mutton

Ingredients

1 tender shoulder of mutton, boned
2 ounces brown sugar per pound of meat
¼ teaspoon cloves per pound of meat
1 teaspoon mace per pound of meat
1 teaspoon pepper per pound of meat
½ teaspoon ginger per pound of meat
2 teaspoons coarse sea salt per pound of meat
1½ pints good beef gravy
beef broth for stewing

Directions

Cure the mutton

Rub the brown sugar, cloves, mace, pepper, and ginger into the boned mutton.
Place the meat in a deep dish and rub in the coarse sea salt the next day.
Add the beef gravy to the dish, turning the meat to coat it.
Rub the meat with the pickle daily for a week or ten days, keeping it in the pickle.
After a week or ten days, roll the meat tightly and bind it with string.

Stew and serve

Stew the meat gently in beef broth for four hours.
Serve hot in its own gravy with a piquant sauce or ketchup.

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.

Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,400 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,800 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton shoulder: Long curing and slow stewing turn the tough, fatty meat tender and succulent.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and helps form a darkly flavoured crust in the cure.
Coarse sea salt: Draws moisture out of the meat and seasons it deeply during curing.
Beef gravy: Supplies moisture and savoury depth to the pickle the meat is kept in.

The step that matters

Turning the meat in the pickle daily. Regular turning keeps every surface in contact with the salty, sugary liquid, so the cure penetrates evenly instead of only on the exposed side.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, sugar, meat, clove, pepper, ginger, beef):

Cinnamonfits better
Cardamomfits better
Allspicefits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sugar, meat, clove, pepper, ginger, beef. 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 spiced mutton shoulder recipes

Stew 3 See all 7 →

Beef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipes

Mutton Broth292 recipes

Roast Beef211 recipes

Beef Loaf175 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Spiced Shoulder of Mutton