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Mutton, Leg Of, with Forcemeat

A leg of mutton stuffed with a forcemeat mixture of bacon, garlic, onion, pickles, and parsley, then stewed and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton, Leg Of, with Forcemeat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the leg

  1. Carefully bone the leg of mutton without injuring the skin and pare off the fat.

  2. Mince together ½ pound of mutton and ½ pound of bacon. Season the mince with garlic, onion, pickles, salt, pepper, and parsley.

  3. Fill the hollow of the leg with the mince and secure the skin over the opening.

Stew and serve

  1. In a pot, boil the bone and trimmings with enough veal broth or water to stew the leg. Add sliced onion, carrot, parsley, salt, and pepper to the pot.

  2. Lay slices of bacon over the top of the leg and stew gently with the lid closed for 3.5 hours or more.

  3. Strain the gravy, boil it rapidly, and reduce it to a glaze or thicken with browned flour.

  4. Serve the meat with the glaze or thickened gravy and French beans warmed in the gravy.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Forms the main body of the dish and, with the bacon, the savoury stuffing.
Bacon
Adds fat and salty, savoury flavour to the stuffing and melts into the meat as it stews.
Pickles
Add sharp acidity that cuts through the rich meat and fat.
Browned flour
Thickens the strained gravy and adds a deeper, toasted colour and flavour.

The step that matters

Gentle, covered stewing. Long, gentle stewing with the lid closed breaks down the tough connective tissue in mutton so it becomes tender. A rapid boil would toughen and dry the meat, so keep the pot at a low simmer.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, garlic, onion, pepper, parsley, veal, carrot):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, garlic, onion, pepper, parsley, veal, carrot. 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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