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Breast of Mutton

A mutton breast cooked by roasting, boiling, or stewing, seasoned with salt, pepper, herbs, curry powder, and served with cucumber or tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Breast of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Rub the breast of mutton with coarse sea salt.

  2. Cut off excess fat.

  3. Remove the bones.

  4. Flatten the breast.

  5. Half boil the mutton.

  6. Cut off the fat.

Stuff and roll

  1. Cover the mutton with bread, herbs, and seasoning.

  2. Roll the mutton.

  3. Season with pepper and salt.

Cook and finish

  1. Roast the mutton.

  2. Sprinkle with chopped parsley while roasting.

  3. Boil until tender.

  4. Stew the mutton with vegetables and a little curry powder.

  5. Brush with egg yolk.

  6. Sprinkle with minced parsley and green onion mixed with bread crumbs.

  7. Brush with fresh butter.

  8. Broil in a Dutch oven.

Serve

  1. Serve with stewed cucumbers.

  2. Serve with tomato sauce or sorrel.

  3. Serve with stewed cucumber or sauce Robert.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Breast of mutton
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the flavour and texture of the meat.
Bread
Soaks up juices and adds bulk to the stuffing, keeping it moist inside the roll.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the outside brown and taste rich when brushed on.
Egg yolk (in the method)
Brushed on as a glaze, it helps the surface brown and gives a glossy finish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating on the surface when broiled.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the stewed mutton.

The step that matters

Half boil the mutton. Partly boiling before rolling and broiling softens the meat and renders some fat, so it cooks through without drying out at the surface.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, parsley, bread, pepper, butter. 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 breast recipes

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