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Roast Leg of Mutton Stuffed

A leg of mutton is seasoned, stuffed with a breadcrumb and herb mixture, sewn closed, and roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Roast Leg of 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

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

  2. To make the stuffing, combine stale bread crumbs, melted butter, salt, black pepper, marjoram, sage, and onion juice in a bowl.

  3. Add hot water to the stuffing if it is not moist enough.

  4. Sprinkle the inside of the leg of mutton with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stuff the leg with the stuffing mixture and sew it closed.

  2. Roast the stuffed leg of mutton until cooked through.

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. Marjoram + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Mutton leg
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and flavorful during slow roasting.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and moisture to form a soft, cohesive stuffing.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the stuffing moist and helping it brown.
Onion juice
Adds a mild savory aroma and flavor to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Adding hot water to the stuffing. Stale bread crumbs need enough liquid to become moist; a dry stuffing stays crumbly and can draw moisture from the meat, so it should be moistened before the leg is sewn closed.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, bread, butter, marjoram, sage):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, bread, butter, marjoram, sage. 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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