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Leg, Roasted

A leg of meat marinated in wine, sweet oil, sage, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and roasted over a fire.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 642 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Leg, Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Gently remove the skin from the leg and place it in a crockery vessel.

  2. Pour the white wine, sweet oil, sage, salt, pepper, and nutmeg over the leg.

  3. Marinate for 2 days in winter or 1 day in summer, turning it 2-3 times.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the leg on a spit and roast over a sharp fire.

  2. Baste often with the marinade or melted butter.

  3. Roast for about 2 to 2.5 hours, then serve with strained gravy.

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. Sage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. White wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of meat
Is the main cut that becomes tender and browned during long roasting.
White wine
Adds acidity to the marinade, helping to tenderise the surface of the meat.
Sweet oil
Carries the sage and nutmeg flavours and keeps the surface from drying out.
Sage
Contributes a savoury, aromatic herb flavour to the marinade and meat.
Melted butter
Adds fat for basting, promoting browning and a rich glossy surface.

The step that matters

Baste often over the fire. Basting with the marinade or melted butter replaces moisture lost to heat and encourages even browning. Without it, the surface can dry out and char before the centre is cooked through over a long roast.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, white wine, sage, pepper, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, white wine, sage, pepper, butter. 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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