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Haunch of Mutton

A roasted haunch of mutton served with gravy, mashed potatoes, and optional French beans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 655 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Haunch of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Saw or break three inches from the knuckle-bone and remove all skin from the loin.

  2. Place the haunch on a spit, starting at the knuckle and bringing it out at the flap, avoiding the fillet of the loin.

Roast

  1. Cover the haunch with three sheets of buttered paper and roast for 2.5 hours.

  2. Half an hour before it's done, remove the paper, baste with a little butter, and lightly dredge with salt.

Serve

  1. Once done, dish it up with a frill around the knuckle and pour 1 pint of hot gravy over it.

  2. Serve with mashed potatoes and French beans in summer.

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. Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

  4. Butter + beanstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + potatotop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton haunch
Provides the main cut of meat, which becomes tender and juicy during long roasting.
Butter
Basting adds fat to the surface, promoting gentle browning and a richer flavour.
Hot gravy
Adds moisture and savoury richness to the meat when poured over it at serving.

The step that matters

Covering with buttered paper. The paper shields the surface from fierce heat during the long roast, so the meat cooks through without drying or over-browning before the final basting.

Swap the beans

The recipe marks beans as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, potato):

  1. Peasfits about as well
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Peanutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, potato. 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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