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Baked Leg of Mutton

A roasted leg of mutton seasoned with salt, pepper, and flour, served with a gravy and tart jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Baked Leg of 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. Wipe the mutton with a damp cloth.

  2. Sprinkle it with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and flour.

  3. Place it on a meat rack in a roasting pan.

Roast

  1. Add 1 cup of water to the pan and roast in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes per pound.

  2. Baste every 10 minutes, adding more water if needed, and sprinkle with flour, salt, and pepper at each basting.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. When done, serve on a platter.

  2. Drain off all but 2 tablespoons of fat from the dripping pan.

  3. Add a little water and thicken with flour mixed with cold water, stirring constantly until the gravy reaches the desired consistency.

  4. Pour a couple of spoonfuls of gravy on the meat before serving and place the remainder in a sauceboat.

  5. Always serve with currant jelly or another tart jelly.

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. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes
  4. Mutton + curranttop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Pepper + curranttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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 provides the substance of the dish.
Flour
Coats the surface and later thickens the pan drippings into gravy.
Fat
Drippings are kept to enrich and flavour the gravy.
Currant jelly
Its tartness provides acidity that contrasts with the rich roasted meat.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the gravy. Flour added to hot liquid clumps unless it is first mixed smooth with cold water and stirred constantly, so the gravy thickens evenly.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, 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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