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Roast Mutton Smothered in Onions

A roasted leg of mutton topped with browned onions cooked in clarified butter or leaf lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42,912 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Roast Mutton Smothered in Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Roast the mutton

  1. Roast the leg of mutton until cooked to your preference.

Fry the onions

  1. In a skillet, heat the clarified butter or leaf lard over medium heat.

  2. Add the sliced onions and fry until they are brown and tender.

Serve

  1. Once the mutton is done, place it on a platter and pile the fried onions on top.

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. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 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

Onions
Soften when fried and brown, adding sweetness and savoury browned flavour.
Clarified butter or leaf lard
Fat for frying the onions, conducting heat evenly and helping them brown.

The step that matters

Fry the onions until brown and tender. Medium heat lets the sliced onions soften while their sugars slowly caramelise and brown. Too much heat scorches the outside before the centre becomes tender and sweet.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter. 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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