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Roast Saddle of Mutton

Roast saddle of mutton is a whole mutton saddle roasted with a glaze of claret and red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and red currant work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 394 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Saddle of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the saddle

  1. Trim the saddle and remove excess fat.

  2. Skin the saddle and skewer the skin over the meat.

Roast and brown

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Roast the saddle for 1.5 hours, basting frequently.

  3. Half an hour before it is done, remove the skin.

  4. Dredge the saddle with flour and sprinkle a little coarse sea salt over it.

  5. Place it in a part of the oven to brown without burning.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Transfer the saddle to a very hot platter.

  2. Pour the fat from the dripping pan.

  3. Add 1 cup of hot water to the pan and rub off the glaze.

  4. Season the mixture with salt.

  5. Add 1 glass of claret and 1 tablespoon of red currant jelly.

  6. Serve the gravy in a tureen.

  7. Carve the saddle lengthwise.

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. Flour + red curranttop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mutton + red curranttop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  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

Saddle of mutton
Is the main cut of meat that is roasted and carved.
Flour
Coats the outside of the meat, helping it brown and form a crust.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy, balancing its savoriness.
Claret
Adds acidity and wine flavor to the gravy.

The step that matters

Place it in a part of the oven to brown without burning.. Flour and sugars in the meat's surface can scorch quickly at high heat, so the saddle must be moved to a spot where it browns gradually while the fat renders.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Red currantthe original
  3. Pumpkinfits about as well
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour. 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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