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Roast Shoulder of Mutton

A roasted shoulder of mutton served with a caper sauce and side of turnips, carrots, and boiled potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 145 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Roast Shoulder of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mutton

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Season the mutton with salt and pepper, then place it in the oven to roast for about 1.5 hours, basting regularly.

Make the caper sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt ¼ cup of butter and add ½ cup of double cream, keeping it warm on the side.

  2. In another pot, bring 1½ pints of stock to a boil.

  3. Mix 4 tablespoons of flour with ½ cup of water until smooth, then strain it into the boiling stock while whisking.

  4. Let the mixture boil, then stir in 6 ounces of butter, salt, white pepper, vinegar, and capers until thickened.

Serve

  1. Once the mutton is done, place it on a serving dish with quartered turnips and carrots around it.

  2. Pour some of the caper sauce over the mutton and serve the remaining sauce in a sauce boat with mashed turnips and boiled potatoes.

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. Capers + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Shoulder of mutton
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and juicy as it roasts slowly.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce as it cooks and boils.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Double cream
Adds richness and body, softening the sauce's flavor and texture.
Stock from boiled mutton
Provides the savory meaty base that the sauce is built on.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the caper sauce. Flour mixed with water must be smooth before it goes into the boiling stock, and the mixture must be whisked while it is added. Lumps form when flour meets hot liquid unevenly, and straining removes any that remain. Boiling then cooks out the raw flour taste and sets the thickness.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, cream, flour, vinegar, capers, turnip):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, cream, flour, vinegar, capers, turnip. 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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