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Boiled Leg of Mutton

A boiled leg of mutton seasoned with coarse sea salt, served with caper sauce and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,693 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Ensure the leg of mutton is fresh.

  2. Place it in a pot of well‑salted boiling water.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil for 15 minutes per pound of meat until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Serve with caper sauce, either in a sauceboat or poured over the mutton.

  3. Garnish with parsley.

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. Parsley + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Mutton + parsleytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,915 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Mutton + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Supplies the main body of the dish; boiling slowly breaks down its connective tissue for tenderness.
Caper sauce
Adds a sharp, acidic contrast that cuts through the rich, fatty flavour of the meat.

The step that matters

Boil for 15 minutes per pound until thoroughly cooked. Cooking time depends on the weight of the meat. Too little time leaves the centre undercooked and unsafe, while too much makes the meat dry and stringy as its proteins tighten and moisture is lost.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Pepperfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sauce. 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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