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Leg of Mutton, Cooked to Resemble Venison

A leg of mutton marinated with bacon fat, spices, garlic, onions, and wine, then roasted until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Leg of Mutton, Cooked to Resemble Venison

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Remove the fat from the leg of mutton and lard it with bacon fat.

  2. Season the leg with coarse sea salt and fine spices.

  3. Place the leg in a large tureen with garlic, onions, cloves, laurel leaves, sweet herbs, and peppercorns.

  4. Pour enough vinegar to nearly cover the mutton; dilute with water if the vinegar is too strong.

  5. Cover and let the mutton marinate for 2 to 3 days, turning it daily.

Roast and baste

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the mutton in a dripping pan and moisten both sides with melted butter, ½ cup of the pickle, and 1 cup of red wine.

  3. Cook the mutton in the oven or on a spit, basting regularly.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Clove + laureltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + red winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Garlic + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Vinegar + red winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together575 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and juicy as it cooks slowly.
Vinegar
Acidity in the marinade helps break down muscle fibres, tenderising the meat and adding tang.
Bacon fat
Larding fat melts into the lean meat, adding moisture and savoury richness.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth to the basting liquid, contributing flavour and promoting browning.
Melted butter
Fat in the basting liquid carries flavour and helps the surface brown and stay moist.

The step that matters

Basting regularly during cooking. Mutton is lean and dries out easily over long cooking. Regular basting with the fat and pickle keeps the surface moist and encourages even browning.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, garlic, onion, laurel, vinegar, butter, red wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, garlic, onion, laurel, vinegar, butter, red wine. 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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