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To Cook a Leg of Mutton

A leg of mutton is soaked, boiled, seasoned, and baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Cook a Leg of Mutton

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and boil

  1. Soak the mutton in warm water with salt and red pepper.

  2. Boil until tender, allowing the water to reduce significantly.

Season and roast

  1. Remove the mutton and season with additional salt, pepper, and flour.

  2. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven with the broth.

  3. Bake for 30 minutes, basting often until the meat is 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. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mutton + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Lean meat that becomes tender through long, moist cooking, here by boiling first.
Flour
Coats the surface of the meat, helping it brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Boil until tender, allowing the water to reduce significantly.. The water reduces into a concentrated broth that is later used with the meat in the oven. Boiling until the meat is tender before roasting ensures it softens fully, while reducing too far can leave too little liquid for baking.

“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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