Name: Leg of Mutton
Ingredients: 1 leg of mutton; coarse sea salt; pepper; paper frill (for presentation)

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 ↓

Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

1 leg of mutton
coarse sea salt
pepper
paper frill (for presentation)

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

Select a leg of mutton from a sheep aged 3 to 6 years for the best flavor.
Season the mutton with coarse sea salt and pepper.

Roast and serve

Roast the mutton in a 350°F (175°C) oven until cooked to your liking.
Carve the leg by cutting down to the bone from the top to the bottom.
Serve with a paper frill around the knuckle for improved presentation.

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.

Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

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 meat that becomes tender and juicy as it roasts slowly.
Coarse sea salt: Seasons the meat surface and helps draw out flavor during roasting.

“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.