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Mutton and Pork Stew

A stew of mutton and pork simmered with onion, salt, pepper, and optional herbs, thickened with flour and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Mutton and Pork Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the mutton into small pieces, about ½ inch square, and the pork into thin slices.

  2. Slice the onion and divide the rings if necessary.

Stew

  1. Place the mutton in a covered stew pan and add enough cold water to cover it.

  2. Heat gradually and stew for 1 hour.

  3. Add the pork slices, onion, salt, and pepper, and continue stewing until the meats are fully cooked.

Add pastry and finish

  1. If using pastry, prepare it by mixing 1 quart of flour with 3 tablespoons of lard, 2½ cups of milk, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, and 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar.

  2. Roll out the pastry to ½ inch thick, cut into squares or diamonds, and add to the stew for 10 to 15 minutes before serving.

  3. If desired, add sweet herbs just before serving to retain their flavor.

  4. To thicken the stew, mix 1 tablespoon of flour with 1 cup of milk and stir in just 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Pork + meattop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 it stews slowly in water.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavour to the broth as it cooks down.
Flour
Thickens the stew liquid when mixed with milk and stirred in before serving.
Milk
Combines with flour to add body and a creamy richness to the stew.

The step that matters

Heat gradually and stew for 1 hour. Gentle, gradual heating keeps the tough mutton from seizing and toughening, letting connective tissue break down into tender meat.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pork, onion, pepper, milk, flour, meat):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pork, onion, pepper, milk, flour, meat. 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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