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Braised Leg of Mutton

A slow‑cooked leg of mutton stewed with carrots, onions, savory, bacon, and water, served with a thickened gravy and olive‑shaped potato garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Braised Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the mutton

  1. Line the bottom of a thick iron kettle or stewpan with a few slices of bacon.

  2. Place the sliced carrots, onions, and savory herbs over the bacon.

  3. Put the leg of mutton on top, then cover with more bacon slices.

  4. Pour ½ pint of water over the meat, cover tightly, and stew gently for 4 hours.

  5. Baste the leg occasionally with its own juices and season with salt and pepper when it begins to tender.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Once cooked, strain the gravy and thicken it with 1 tablespoon of flour until brown.

  2. Pour some gravy over the meat and serve the rest in a tureen.

  3. Garnish the dish with potatoes cut like olives and fried in butter until light brown.

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 + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful through slow, moist cooking.
Bacon
Releases fat and savoury flavour into the pot, keeping the meat moist during stewing.
Onions
Break down during stewing, adding sweetness and body to the juices that form the gravy.
Carrots
Soften during stewing, adding natural sweetness and body to the braising liquid.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy so it coats the meat and holds its shape on the plate.

The step that matters

Stewing gently with the lid tightly covered. Low, moist heat over a long period breaks down the tough connective tissue in mutton. A rapid boil or a loose lid would dry the meat and toughen it before it becomes tender.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, pepper, flour, butter, potato, olive):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, pepper, flour, butter, potato, olive. 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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