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Mutton Stew

A hearty stew of mutton, salt pork, onion, pepper, and herbs simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mutton Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the meat

  1. Place the mutton pieces in a pot and cover with cold water.

  2. Heat gradually and stew for 1 hour, covered.

  3. Add the salt pork, onion, and pepper to the stew.

  4. Cover the pot and stew for another hour until the meat is tender.

Add dumplings and finish

  1. Make a paste for dumplings.

  2. Cut the paste into squares.

  3. Drop the dumpling squares into the stew.

  4. Boil the stew for 10 minutes.

  5. Season with parsley and thyme.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Long slow stewing turns tough connective tissue tender, giving the meat its main body and flavour.
Salt pork
Renders fat into the broth, adding richness and savoury depth to the stew.
Onion
Softens during stewing and adds sweetness and aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Keep the stew at a gentle heat for the full stewing time. Heating gradually and stewing slowly lets collagen in the mutton break down into gelatin, so the meat becomes tender rather than dry and stringy. Rapid boiling tightens muscle fibres and toughens the meat.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pork, pepper, parsley, thyme. 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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