Skip to main content
Main

Roast Mutton, Stuffed

A roasted mutton shoulder stuffed with bread crumbs, pork, herbs, and spices, served with a browned flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mutton and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,239 recipes. Both carry 1-nonanal, which smells fatty, waxy. The science ↓

Roast Mutton, Stuffed

Ingredients

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 the dressing

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Make a dressing by mixing bread crumbs, chopped pork, pepper, coarse sea salt, and sweet herbs.

Roast the mutton

  1. Stuff the cavity of the mutton with the dressing and stitch the opening closed.

  2. Place the mutton in a baking pan and pour boiling water over it.

  3. Bake for about 15 minutes per pound, basting frequently.

  4. Once done, transfer the mutton to a platter and keep warm.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Skim and strain the gravy.

  2. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  3. Serve a little gravy over the meat and the rest separately.

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. Mutton + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  2. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shoulder of mutton
Forms the main meat that is roasted and stuffed, giving the dish its body and richness.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices in the dressing, giving the stuffing a moist, soft texture.
Chopped pork
Adds fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist and savoury as it cooks.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy while its toasted flavour adds depth and colour.

The step that matters

Basting frequently during baking. Regular basting spoons juices back over the surface, keeping the meat moist and helping it brown evenly as the long roast cooks.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes