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Roast Mutton

Roast mutton is a slow‑cooked sheep leg or shoulder, basted with water and butter, seasoned with salt and flour, served with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim off inedible parts of the meat, then wash and dry it with a clean cloth.

  2. Place the meat in a dripping pan and add a little water for initial basting.

Roast

  1. Roast for about 12 minutes per pound in a strong fire.

  2. Do not salt the meat initially; salt it after it begins to roast well.

  3. If the meat browns too quickly, cover it with a sheet of white paper.

  4. Baste often.

  5. About 15 minutes before it's done, lightly dredge with flour and baste with butter.

Finish and serve

  1. Skim the gravy.

  2. Thicken slightly with brown flour before serving.

  3. Serve with currant jelly or other tart sauce.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes

Flour and butter 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

Mutton (in the method)
Provides the meat that roasts, browns and becomes tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the surface, promoting browning and flavour during basting.
Flour
Dredged on the surface to help form a browned crust, and brown flour thickens the gravy.
Currant jelly
Its tartness contrasts with the rich, fatty meat, adding acidity and balance.

The step that matters

Salting the meat after it begins to roast. Salting at the start can draw out moisture and slow browning, so salt is added once the surface has begun to roast well.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, 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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