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Braised Leg of Mutton

A slow‑cooked leg of mutton stewed with carrots, onions, savory, bacon, and potatoes, finished with a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 and stew

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

  2. Place the sliced carrots, onions, and savory herbs over the bacon.

  3. Put the leg of mutton on top.

  4. Cover with more bacon.

  5. Pour in ½ pint of water.

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

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

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Strain the gravy.

  2. Thicken the gravy with 1 tablespoon of flour until brown.

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

  4. Garnish the dish with potatoes cut into olive shapes and fried in butter.

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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and rich during long gentle stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor to the pan, keeping the meat moist as it stews.
Onions
Soften during stewing and add sweetness and depth to the juices that become the gravy.
Carrots
Release sugars during slow cooking, adding gentle sweetness and body to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy, giving it body as it browns.

The step that matters

Stew gently and cover tightly. Slow, low-heat stewing in a tightly covered pot breaks down tough connective tissue in the meat while keeping it moist. Boiling hard would toughen the meat and reduce the juices.

Swap the onion

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

  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, butter, potato, olive. 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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