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To Roast Mutton Like Venison

A method of roasting a leg of mutton with salt, Port wine, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,499 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Roast Mutton Like Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the leg of mutton with coarse sea salt and hang it in a moist place for two days, wiping it with a cloth two or three times a day.

  2. Place the mutton in a pan and boil the Port wine.

Cook

  1. Pour the boiling Port wine over the mutton and cover it tightly for two hours.

  2. Baste the mutton frequently with the sauce or butter.

  3. Bake in a brisk oven for one and a half hours.

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. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + port winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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 cut of meat that becomes the dish, cooked until tender.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and acidity, and its moisture steams the meat while it cooks.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and draws out moisture during the two-day rest.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the basting liquid, helping the surface brown.

The step that matters

Baste the mutton frequently with the sauce or butter. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and carries heat and fat across it, so the outside browns evenly instead of drying out before the centre is tender.

“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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