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Roast Leg of Mutton

A roasted leg of mutton seasoned with butter, pepper, salt, optional cloves and allspice, served with a gravy thickened with flour and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roast Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the mutton with butter, pepper, coarse sea salt, and optional cloves and allspice.

Roast

  1. Place it in a dripping pan in the oven.

  2. Baste frequently, allowing 15 minutes per pound of mutton.

Make the gravy

  1. Thicken the gravy with flour and water.

  2. Season the gravy with spices and catsup, or with wine and currant jelly.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Is the main cut of meat that is roasted and carved, providing the dish's body and flavor.
Butter
Adds fat that carries seasoning and helps the outside of the meat brown and stay moist.
Flour
Thickens the drippings into a gravy by absorbing liquid as it heats.
Catsup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the gravy, rounding out its savory flavor.

The step that matters

Basting frequently. Regular basting spreads melted fat and drippings over the surface, keeping the meat moist and helping the exterior brown rather than dry out during the long roast.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, pepper, allspice, flour, wine):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, pepper, allspice, flour, wine. 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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