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Boiled Leg of Mutton

A leg of mutton boiled in salted water, then rubbed with butter and served with caper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the mutton

  1. Cook the leg of mutton in plenty of hot salted water, allowing 12 minutes per pound.

  2. Remove from water when done and wipe carefully.

Finish and serve

  1. Rub the leg all over with butter.

  2. Serve with caper sauce.

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. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Leg of mutton
Main protein; gentle simmering in water cooks the meat through and keeps it moist and tender.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy finish to the surface of the cooked meat.
Caper sauce
Adds a sharp, acidic contrast that balances the rich, fatty mutton.

The step that matters

Cook the mutton for the right time. Timing by weight is the step most likely to go wrong. Too little time leaves the meat undercooked near the bone, while too much time makes the muscle fibres dry and stringy as protein tightens and moisture is squeezed out.

“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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