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Roast Saddle of Mutton

Roast saddle of mutton stuffed with bread crumbs, pepper, salt, marjoram, egg, and butter, baked until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roast Saddle of Mutton

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Remove the bone from the saddle of mutton.

Stuff and roast

  1. Fill the space with a mixture of bread crumbs, pepper, salt, sweet marjoram, egg, and butter.

  2. Roast the mutton for 45 minutes.

Make gravy

  1. Make gravy as you would for a leg of mutton.

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 + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Marjoram + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,008 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl decanoate (grape, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Saddle of mutton
Is the main cut of meat, providing the bulk and flavour of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Absorb meat juices in the stuffing, adding moisture and body inside the roast.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when sliced.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the stuffing and helps keep it moist.

The step that matters

Roast the mutton for 45 minutes. Roasting time must be matched to the size and thickness of the stuffed joint. Timing set by the record alone may leave the centre underdone or the outside overcooked, so check doneness in the thickest part of the meat.

Swap the marjoram

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, egg, butter, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Marjoramthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, egg, butter, bread. 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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