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Boiled Mutton

A boiled leg of mutton served with vinegar and caper or piquant sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,087 recipes. Both carry decanoic acid, which smells soapy, waxy. The science ↓

Boiled Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the leg of mutton until it is almost done.

  2. Add 1 cup of vinegar to the pot to keep the meat firm.

  3. Continue boiling until fully cooked.

  4. Serve with caper sauce or piquant sauce.

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 + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  2. Mutton + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together615 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  3. Vinegar + saucetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,844 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Main cut of meat that becomes tender and cooked through during boiling.
Vinegar
Acidity that helps the meat hold its firmness while it boils.

The step that matters

Finishing the boil. Meat cooked past the point of doneness becomes dry and stringy as its proteins tighten and lose moisture. Checking for doneness before the final boil keeps the texture tender.

“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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