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Mutton, Leg Of, with Garlic

Roasted leg of mutton served with a garlic sauce made from boiled garlic and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,368 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Mutton, Leg Of, with Garlic

Ingredients

Directions

Roast the mutton

  1. Stuff 3-4 cloves of garlic under the skin of the leg of mutton near the shank.

  2. Roast the leg of mutton in the usual way.

Make the garlic sauce

  1. Peel and boil the garlic cloves in water for a few minutes, changing the water several times to mellow the flavor.

  2. After boiling, drain the garlic and add it to the good gravy made from the roasting.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat hot on top of the garlic sauce.

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. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Mutton + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

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

  3. Garlic + meattop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,530 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Mutton + garlictop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together673 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  5. Clove + meattop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Provides the main body of the dish, with fat and protein that brown and flavor the roast.
Garlic
Adds aroma and savory pungency that mellows and sweetens when boiled.
Gravy from roasting the meat
Carries meat juices and browned flavor, giving the sauce moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Changing the water when boiling the garlic. Boiling garlic in fresh water several times softens its sharp sulfur compounds, so the sauce tastes mellow rather than harsh. Skipping the changes or boiling too briefly leaves the garlic strong and bitter.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, garlic, meat. 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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