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Baked Leg of Mutton

A roasted leg of mutton seasoned with salt, pepper, and flour, baked with water and served with gravy and 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

  1. Wipe the mutton with a damp cloth.

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

  3. Place the mutton on a meat rack in a roasting pan.

  4. Add 1 cup of water to the pan.

Roast

  1. Roast the mutton at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes per pound.

  2. Baste the mutton every 10 minutes. Add more water if needed.

  3. Sprinkle the mutton with flour, salt, and pepper.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. When done, serve the mutton on a platter.

  2. Drain off all but 2 tablespoons of fat from the dripping pan. Add a little water.

  3. Thicken the gravy with flour mixed with cold water, stirring constantly until desired consistency.

  4. Pour some gravy over the meat before serving. Place the rest of the gravy in a sauceboat.

  5. Serve the mutton with currant or 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

Mutton
Lean meat that becomes tender and juicy during slow roasting, with browned surface flavour.
Flour
Coats the surface for browning and later thickens the pan drippings into gravy.
Fat
Carries flavour from the pan drippings and helps the gravy taste rich.
Currant jelly or tart jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balances the rich, savoury mutton.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with flour mixed with cold water. Flour added dry or to hot liquid forms lumps; mixing it with cold water first and stirring constantly lets the starch disperse evenly and thicken smoothly.

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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