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A Small Leg of Mutton, or Other Meat, Braised

A braised leg of mutton cooked slowly in its own drippings, finished with a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Prepare

  1. Melt the drippings in an oval iron pot over low heat.

  2. Sprinkle the meat with a little coarse sea salt.

  3. Place the meat in the pot.

Braise

  1. Cover the pot.

  2. Cook on low heat, shaking occasionally to prevent burning.

  3. Turn the meat for even cooking.

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

Make the gravy and serve

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

  2. Pour off the fat from the gravy.

  3. Add a little water or stock.

  4. Thicken the gravy with 2 tablespoons of flour mixed with a little cold water.

  5. Season the gravy with pepper, salt, or catsup or Harvey’s sauce.

  6. Boil until the gravy thickens.

  7. Pour the gravy 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. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mutton + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton leg
The main meat, which becomes tender through slow, covered cooking in its own fat.
Drippings
Fat that starts the braise and browns the meat while keeping it from sticking.
Flour
Thickens the pan liquid into a smooth gravy when cooked with it.

The step that matters

Cook on low heat, shaking occasionally. Low, gentle heat under a covered lid braises the meat slowly and keeps the fat and liquid from scorching. Too much heat can burn the bottom of the pot before the meat is tender.

“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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