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Steamed Leg of Mutton

A leg of mutton steamed, then roasted, served with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,077 recipes. The science ↓

Steamed 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.

Steam

  1. Wash the leg of mutton and place it in a steamer.

  2. Cook until tender.

Roast and serve

  1. Transfer to a roasting pan, season with coarse sea salt, and dredge with flour.

  2. Roast in a 400°F (200°C) oven until nicely browned.

  3. Use the remaining water in the steamer for soup.

  4. Serve with currant jelly.

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 + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes
  2. Mutton + curranttop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. 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 meat, cooked by steaming until tender and then roasted for browning.
Flour
Dredged over the meat so its surface browns and forms a crust in the oven.
Currant jelly
Adds sweet-tart fruitiness that contrasts with the rich, savoury mutton.

The step that matters

Roast until nicely browned. Steaming leaves the meat pale and soft, so the dry oven roast is what creates browning and flavour on the surface. Cooking it too briefly leaves the exterior underdeveloped.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Red currantfits better
  3. Pumpkinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour. 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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