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Braised Leg of Mutton

A slow‑cooked leg of mutton stewed with bacon, carrots, onions, savory herbs, and water, served with a brown gravy and fried olive‑shaped potatoes.

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

Prepare the pot

  1. Line the bottom of a thick iron kettle or stewpan with 4 slices of bacon.

  2. Add the chopped carrots, onions, and savory herbs on top of the bacon.

  3. Place the leg of mutton over the vegetables and cover with a few more slices of bacon.

  4. Pour ½ pint of water over the meat and cover tightly.

Stew and make the gravy

  1. Stew gently for 4 hours, basting occasionally with the juices.

  2. Season with salt and pepper as it becomes tender.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. Thicken the gravy with 1 tablespoon of flour until brown.

Serve

  1. Pour some gravy over the meat.

  2. Serve the rest of the gravy in a tureen.

  3. Fry the potatoes in butter until light brown.

  4. Garnish the dish with potatoes cut into olive shapes.

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
The main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing in its own juices.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the pot as it renders into the juices.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the braising liquid and the gravy.
Onions
Build savoury depth and sweetness as they soften and release their juices.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 4 hours. Low, slow heat breaks down the tough connective tissue in the leg so the meat becomes tender. Boiling hard would toughen the outer muscle fibres and dry the meat.

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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