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Game Mutton

A roasted leg of game mutton seasoned with vinegar, lemon, onion, oil, and served with a currant jelly and sherry gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Game 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 the mutton

  1. Hang the leg of mutton in a cool place for 2 weeks, washing it with vinegar every other day.

  2. Rub the mutton with lemon juice.

  3. Rub the mutton with a cut onion.

  4. Rub the mutton with salad oil.

Roast

  1. Place the mutton in a covered roaster with boiling water.

  2. Cook the mutton in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

  3. Transfer the mutton to a cooler oven at 350°F (175°C).

  4. Cook the mutton for 15 minutes per pound.

  5. Half an hour before finishing, baste the mutton with gravy mixed with melted currant jelly.

  6. Baste the mutton again with butter.

  7. Sprinkle the mutton with pepper, salt, and flour.

  8. Brown the mutton on the upper rack of the oven.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Pour off the gravy.

  2. Cool the gravy to skim off the fat.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. Return the gravy to heat, thickening it with browned flour.

  5. Add sherry to the gravy.

  6. Pour half of the gravy over the meat.

  7. Serve the remaining gravy separately.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Long hanging and washing with vinegar tenderise and flavour the lean meat before roasting.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a glossy glaze to the gravy used for basting.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the outer surface brown during basting.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and helps the coating brown in the oven.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Cool the gravy to skim off the fat. Fat separates and rises as gravy cools, so skimming it first leaves a lighter sauce. Skipping this step makes the gravy greasy before the flour thickens it.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, vinegar, lemon, onion, butter, pepper, flour):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Mangofits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, vinegar, lemon, onion, butter, pepper, 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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