Name: Mutton to Eat Like Venison
Ingredients: 1 fat loin of mutton; 2 tablespoons sugar; ⅓ cup port wine; 2 tablespoons vinegar; ½ teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); ½ pound butter

Why it works: Port wine and vinegar work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 598 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Mutton to Eat Like Venison

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mutton

Hang the mutton for three days.
Bone the mutton and rub it with sugar, port wine, and vinegar.
Let it marinate for four days.
Wash and dry the mutton, then season with pepper and salt.

Assemble and bake

Place half a pound of butter on top of the mutton.
Put the mutton in a dish with a crust around the edge.
Cover the dish with a thick crust.
Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

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.

Port wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together598 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,499 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,806 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton: Provides the rich, meaty base that the long cooking turns tender.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during baking.
Port wine: Adds depth and aroma and helps flavour the meat during marinating.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that helps tenderise the meat during marinating.
Butter: Adds fat and moisture, enriching the meat as it bakes beneath the crust.

The step that matters

Marinate the mutton for four days. The marinade of sugar, port wine and vinegar must penetrate the meat slowly. Acid and sugar work gradually, so the full marinating time matters for flavour and tenderness.

“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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Mutton to Eat Like Venison