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Leg of Mutton Boiled

A boiled leg of mutton served with mashed turnips, potatoes, greens, and optional sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 226 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Leg of Mutton Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the leg of mutton in saltwater for 1.5 hours, ensuring the water is not too salty.

  2. Wipe the leg and wrap it in a floured cloth.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the leg for 2 to 2.5 hours, depending on its weight.

  2. Serve with mashed turnips, potatoes, greens, and your choice of sauce.

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. Turnip + cucumbertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together226 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Flour + turniptop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Turnip + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together562 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Potato + cucumbertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together481 recipes

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

  5. Cucumber + oystertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together192 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle boiling.
Flour
Forms a floured cloth wrapping that helps protect the surface of the meat during boiling.
Potatoes
Starchy vegetable that becomes soft and mashable, serving as a filling side dish.
Turnips
Mashed as a side dish, adding mild sweetness and body.

The step that matters

Boiling the leg. Boiling for too short a time leaves the thick muscle tough, because collagen and connective tissue need prolonged moist heat to break down. Longer times suit heavier legs, so judging by weight matters.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, flour, turnip, sauce, cucumber, oyster):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Horseradishfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, turnip, sauce, cucumber, oyster. 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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