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BoILeED Mutton

A boiled mutton dish cooked with salt, water, optional rice, and finished with a gravy of flour, vinegar, pepper, salt, and parsley or capers.

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 ↓

BoILeED Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the mutton

  1. Wipe the mutton and remove the fat.

  2. Put the meat into well-salted, boiling water.

  3. Boil for 10 minutes, then skim the surface.

  4. Simmer for 12 minutes for each pound of meat.

  5. If desired, add ¼ cup of rice to the pot.

Make the gravy

  1. To make the gravy, add 1 tablespoon of flour moistened with a little cold water to each cup of boiling water used to cook the mutton.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of vinegar, a sprinkle of pepper, and ½ teaspoon of salt.

  3. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring until smooth.

  4. Stir in 1 tablespoon of finely chopped parsley or capers if desired.

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. Rice + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,762 recipes

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

  3. Rice + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle simmering.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth gravy as it boils.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Add the flour slurry to boiling liquid and stir until smooth. Flour mixed with cold water disperses without lumps; adding it to boiling liquid while stirring lets starch gelatinise evenly. Adding dry flour or stopping stirring early can leave lumps in the gravy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, rice, flour, vinegar, pepper. 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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