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Mutton a LA Venison

A roasted leg of mutton seasoned with pepper and cloves, basted and finished with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Mutton a LA Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Lard the leg of mutton with strips of salt pork inserted in deep slits.

  2. Roll the meat in pepper and cloves.

Bake and glaze

  1. Bake for two hours, basting frequently.

  2. About an hour before serving, spread currant jelly over the mutton and return to the oven to brown.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mutton + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  3. Clove + curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Pork + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. 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

Leg of mutton
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked slowly so it becomes tender.
Salt pork
Inserted into the meat to add fat and moisture as it bakes.
Currant jelly
Spread on the surface near the end, where its sugars caramelise and brown in the oven.
Cloves
Rolled into the surface to add aromatic spice flavour.

The step that matters

Basting during the two-hour bake. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and carries fat over the meat, helping it stay juicy and preventing the exterior from drying out during the long roast.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pork, pepper, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pork, pepper, clove. 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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