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Mutton a LA Venison

A roast leg of mutton flavored with salt pork, pepper, cloves, and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Mutton a LA Venison

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Make deep slits in the leg of mutton and insert strips of salt pork.

  3. Roll the mutton in pepper and cloves.

Roast and glaze

  1. Bake for two hours, basting frequently.

  2. About an hour before serving, spread currant jelly over the mutton and return to the oven to brown.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mutton + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  3. Clove + curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Pork + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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 meat that is roasted, carrying the dish's flavour and texture.
Salt pork
Strips inserted into the meat add fat that melts during roasting, keeping it moist and savoury.
Currant jelly
Its sugar caramelises in the oven, giving the mutton a sweet, glossy, browned surface.

The step that matters

Spread the currant jelly and return to the oven to brown. Jelly contains sugar that burns quickly at high heat, so it should be added late, about an hour before serving, and watched closely to brown rather than scorch.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pork, pepper, clove. 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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