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To Roast a Leg of Mutton

A roasted leg of mutton seasoned with coarse sea salt, black pepper, flour, and boiled water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Roast a Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Hang the leg of mutton in a cool, airy place for several days.

  2. Remove the kernel and dry the flap.

  3. Dredge the mutton with black pepper to keep flies away.

  4. Wipe the mutton dry if washed.

  5. Flour the mutton before roasting.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the mutton at a distance from the fire for 4 hours.

  2. Move the mutton closer to the fire for the last 20-30 minutes to brown.

  3. Baste the mutton regularly with its own fat to keep it moist.

  4. Sprinkle lightly with coarse sea salt and ladle boiling water over it before serving.

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. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mutton + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Forms the main body of the dish, and its own fat keeps the meat moist as it roasts.
Flour
Coats the surface so it can brown during roasting and helps form a crisp outer crust.
Black pepper
Adds sharp aroma and flavour to the outer surface of the meat.

The step that matters

Move the mutton closer to the fire for the last 20-30 minutes. Browning relies on high surface heat, so moving the joint nearer the fire only at the end gives colour without drying out the interior, which cooked slowly at a distance.

“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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