Skip to main content
Main

Boned Leg of Mutton

A boned leg of mutton seasoned with salt, pepper, and flour, baked with suet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Boned Leg of Mutton

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the leg

  1. Remove the bone from the leg of mutton and wipe the meat inside and out with a wet cloth.

  2. Sprinkle the inside with coarse sea salt.

  3. Stuff and sew the leg.

Roast

  1. Place the leg on a rack in a dripping pan.

  2. Add some kidney suet on the meat and in the pan.

  3. Dredge the meat with salt, pepper, and flour.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  5. Baste as soon as the flour is browned, then repeat basting often.

  6. Bake for one hour for rare or one hour and a quarter for well done.

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

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

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Leg of mutton
Forms the main body of the roast, and its lean meat cooks to tenderness and juiciness.
Kidney suet
Adds fat that bastes the meat as it melts, keeping it moist and adding richness.
Flour
Dredged over the meat, it browns in the oven to form a crisp, golden crust.

The step that matters

Basting once the flour is browned. Basting too early can wash off the flour coating before it sets, while waiting until it browns builds a crust. Repeated basting then keeps the surface moist and the browning even.

“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.

More boned leg of mutton recipes

Roasted 4

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipesCurried MuttonCurried Mutton9 recipes