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Leg of Mutton a LA Venison

A marinated and boiled leg of mutton seasoned with celery salt, brown sugar, pepper, allspice, and herbs, served with gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Leg of Mutton a LA Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the marinade

  1. Remove all rough fat from the leg of mutton.

  2. Rub celery salt, brown sugar, pepper, allspice, and mixed herbs thoroughly into the meat.

  3. Pour vinegar over the meat, cover tightly, and refrigerate for 4 to 5 days, turning and basting with the liquid 3 to 4 times daily.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring 1 quart of water to a boil in a clean kettle.

  2. Place the mutton on a rack or inverted tin pan in the kettle, ensuring the water does not touch the meat.

  3. Add 1 cup of hot water to the marination and baste the mutton with it.

  4. Once cooked, thicken the gravy with flour, strain, and serve with the meat and currant jelly.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

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

  4. Allspice + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Is the main meat, whose rich flavor and texture the marinade and slow cooking shape.
Vinegar
Acidity tenderises the meat during the long marinating and adds a sharp, tangy note.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and helps the surface brown.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy that clings to the meat.
Currant jelly
Adds sweet, fruity acidity that complements the rich, gamey flavor of the meat.

The step that matters

Keeping the water away from the meat. Placing the mutton on a rack so the water does not touch it lets it cook by gentle steam rather than boiling, keeping the meat moist and tender instead of waterlogged.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, sugar, pepper, allspice, mutton, vinegar, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, sugar, pepper, allspice, mutton, vinegar, flour. 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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