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A Small Leg of Mutton, or Other Meat, Braised

A braised leg of mutton cooked slowly in its own drippings, thickened with flour and seasoned with pepper and catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

A Small Leg of Mutton, or Other Meat, Braised

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the mutton

  1. Melt the drippings in an oval iron pot.

  2. Sprinkle the meat with a little coarse sea salt and add it to the pot.

  3. Cover with the lid and place over low heat on a trivet.

  4. Shake the pot occasionally to prevent burning and turn the meat for even cooking.

  5. If the pot is dry, add a little fat.

  6. Once cooked, transfer the mutton to a hot dish.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Pour off the fat from the gravy, then add a little water or stock.

  2. Mix the flour with a little cold water until smooth, then add to the gravy.

  3. Season with pepper and salt or with catsup or Harvey's sauce.

  4. Boil until the gravy thickens, then pour it over the mutton and serve.

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. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  2. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Mutton + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  5. Pepper + saucetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Pepper and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Slow braising in covered heat makes the meat tender and moist.
Drippings
Fat for browning the meat and carrying flavour through the pot.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks, giving it body.

The step that matters

Turning and shaking the pot over low heat. Low, covered heat with occasional shaking and turning keeps the meat from scorching on the base while it cooks evenly. If the pot runs dry, the meat can burn and the gravy can taste bitter.

“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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