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Leg of Mutton Stuffed

A leg of mutton is stuffed with a mixture of suet, shallot, mushrooms, and parsley, then braised and served with ravigotte sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Leg of Mutton Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Choose a leg of mutton that has been aged well.

  2. Remove the bone and attached meat from the leg, stopping at the shank.

  3. Finely chop the removed meat with beef suet, shallot, mushrooms, and parsley.

  4. Season the mixture with pepper and salt.

  5. Stuff the mixture back into the leg.

  6. Shape the mutton to resemble a whole leg.

  7. Cover it with layers of fat bacon.

Braise and serve

  1. Braise the mutton until cooked through.

  2. Lightly glaze it.

  3. Serve with ravigotte sauce underneath.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Leg of mutton
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meat that is braised.
Beef suet
Adds fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist and rich as it cooks.
Fat bacon
Wrapped over the outside, it protects the surface and adds moisture and savory flavor.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savory depth to the chopped stuffing.

The step that matters

Braise the mutton until cooked through. The stuffed joint is thick and dense, so the centre can stay underdone while the outside looks done. The bacon layers help protect moisture during the long, gentle cooking.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, beef, shallot, mushroom, pepper, sauce):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, beef, shallot, mushroom, pepper, sauce. 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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