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Boiled Leg of Mutton

A leg of mutton boiled with vinegar, pepper, and coarse sea salt, then browned in a kettle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Boiled Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the leg of mutton in a pot and cover with boiling water.

  2. Add ½ cup vinegar, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Boil until cooked through, then brown in the kettle.

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. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  2. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton leg
Main meat; slow moist cooking in water turns its connective tissue tender.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the rich meat.

The step that matters

Brown in the kettle after boiling. Browning needs dry, high heat, while the boiled meat's surface is wet. Pat the leg dry and brown it briefly, or the surface will stay pale and soft rather than developing savory color and flavor.

“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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