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Roast Leg of Mutton

A roasted leg of mutton seasoned with flour, salt, pepper, and cooked with water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 340 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast 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

  1. Have the bone cut short and wipe the leg of mutton with cold water.

  2. Dredge the meat with flour, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

Roast

  1. Place in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  2. Add 1 cup of hot water to the pan and baste frequently.

  3. Cook for 10 minutes per pound for rare, or 15 minutes per pound for well done.

Serve

  1. Garnish the end of the bone with a paper frill or a bunch of watercress or parsley.

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. Flour + watercresstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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
Is the main cut of meat, providing the flavour and texture of the whole dish.
Flour
Coats the surface, helping the outside brown and form a crust during roasting.
Hot water
Added to the pan to create steam and moisture that keeps the meat from drying out.

The step that matters

Cooking time per pound. Roasting time depends on weight and the doneness you want, so a cook who misjudges the weight or time can end up with meat that is overcooked or underdone. Checking the meat's internal temperature is a reliable way to confirm doneness.

“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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