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Stuffed Leg of Mutton

A leg of mutton stuffed with onions, breadcrumbs, salt, and pepper, then roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Cook the onions in boiling water until tender, then chop them finely.

  2. Mix the chopped onions with bread crumbs, salt, and pepper.

Stuff and roast

  1. Make a slit in the sinewy part of the leg of mutton and insert the stuffing.

  2. Roast the stuffed leg of mutton until cooked through.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Bread + muttontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 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

Leg of mutton
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the stuffing during roasting.
Onions
Add moisture and mild sweetness to the stuffing as they soften when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb onion moisture and bind the stuffing so it holds together.

The step that matters

Insert the stuffing into the slit. The stuffing needs a pocket deep enough to sit inside the meat. A shallow or poorly sealed slit lets the stuffing fall out or dry out in the oven, and the meat may cook unevenly around it.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, mutton. 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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