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Braised Leg of Mutton

A slow‑cooked mutton leg stewed with bacon, carrots, onions, savory herbs, and a flour‑thickened gravy, served with fried potato olives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Braised Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line the bottom of a thick iron kettle or stewpan with 4 slices of bacon.

  2. Place 4 sliced carrots, 3 sliced onions, and a bunch of savory herbs over the bacon.

  3. Add the leg of mutton on top, cover with a few more slices of bacon, and pour in ½ cup of water.

Braise

  1. Cover tightly and stew gently for 4 hours, basting occasionally with its own juices.

  2. Season with salt and pepper when the meat begins to tenderize.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. When cooked, strain the gravy and thicken it with 1 tablespoon of flour until brown.

  2. Pour some gravy over the meat and serve the rest in a tureen.

  3. Garnish the dish with fried potato olives.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 meat, becoming tender and flavorful as it slowly braises.
Bacon
Lines the pot and adds fat and savoury smoky flavour to the juices.
Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the braising liquid and gravy.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury depth to the braising liquid and gravy.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Stewing gently with the lid tightly covered. Low, gentle heat in a sealed pot lets tough connective tissue in the mutton break down slowly into tender meat. Boiling hard would toughen the muscle fibres and dry the meat, so the heat must stay low and steady for the full 4 hours.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, pepper, flour, potato, olive, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, pepper, flour, potato, olive, butter. 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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