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Baked Leg of Mutton

A leg of mutton baked after being stuffed with suet, ham, breadcrumbs, eggs, onion, thyme, marjoram, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Baked Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut down the underside of the leg of mutton and remove the bone.

  3. Fill the cavity with a dressing made from suet, chopped ham, bread crumbs, eggs, onion, thyme, sweet marjoram, salt, and pepper.

  4. Sew up the leg to secure the filling.

Bake

  1. Place in the oven and cook for 3 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. Thyme + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Forms the main meat that is cooked slowly to become tender.
Suet
Adds fat to the dressing, keeping the stuffing moist and rich during baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb fat and moisture, giving the dressing body and a soft texture.
Eggs
Bind the dressing so it holds together when the leg is sliced.
Chopped ham
Contributes salty, savoury flavour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Sew up the leg to secure the filling. If the seams are loose, the dressing can leak out and the filling can lose its shape and moisture as the meat cooks. A tight, even closure keeps the stuffing inside the cavity so it cooks through with the meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, ham, bread, egg, thyme, marjoram, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, ham, bread, egg, thyme, marjoram, pepper. 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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