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Game Mutton

A roasted leg of mutton marinated with vinegar, lemon, onion, and oil, served with a currant jelly and sherry gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Game Mutton

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mutton

  1. Hang the leg of mutton in a cool place for two weeks, washing it with vinegar every other day.

  2. When ready to cook, rub the mutton with lemon juice, then with the cut onion, and finally with salad oil.

Roast

  1. Place the mutton in a covered roaster with boiling water and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

  2. Transfer to a cooler oven at 350°F (175°C) and cook for 15 minutes per pound.

  3. Half an hour before finishing, baste with gravy mixed with melted currant jelly.

  4. Fifteen minutes later, baste with butter, sprinkle with pepper, salt, and flour, and brown on the upper rack of the oven.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Pour off the gravy into a bowl and cool to skim off the fat.

  2. Strain the gravy, return it to the heat, thicken with browned flour, boil, and add sherry.

  3. Pour half of the gravy over the meat and serve the rest in a sauce boat.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + curranttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Vinegar + oniontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,226 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 roast, becoming tender and juicy during long, slow cooking.
Vinegar
Acidic washing helps tenderize the surface of the meat during the long hanging period.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and gloss to the gravy and helps the basting glaze brown.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, promoting browning on the surface of the roast.
Flour
Browned flour thickens the gravy and adds a toasted flavor.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aroma to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the meat after the basting with butter, pepper, salt, and flour. The upper rack browning depends on the surface being dry and well coated with fat and flour. Too little heat or too much moisture leaves the crust pale and the gravy weaker in flavor.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, vinegar, lemon, onion, butter, pepper, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, vinegar, lemon, onion, butter, pepper, 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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