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Braised Leg of Mutton

A slow‑cooked mutton leg stewed with bacon, carrots, onions, savory herbs, and a flour‑thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Braised Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the mutton

  1. Line the bottom of a thick iron kettle or stewpan with a few slices of bacon.

  2. Place the sliced carrots, onions, and savory herbs over the bacon.

  3. Put the leg of mutton on top, cover with more bacon, and pour in ½ pint of water.

  4. Cover tightly and stew gently for 4 hours, basting occasionally with its own juices.

  5. Season with salt and pepper when the meat begins to become tender.

Make the gravy

  1. Strain the gravy.

  2. Thicken the strained gravy with 1 tablespoon of flour until brown.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the potatoes in butter until light brown.

  2. Pour some gravy over the meat.

  3. Serve the remaining gravy in a tureen.

  4. Garnish the dish with potatoes cut like olives.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Potato + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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 meat that becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Bacon
Its fat bastes the meat and flavours the braising liquid as it cooks.
Carrots
Sweetness and aroma as they soften and flavour the juices beneath the meat.
Onions
Build savoury depth and sweetness as they cook down in the braising liquid.
Flour
Thickens the strained gravy and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Stew gently and cover tightly. Low, steady heat under a tight lid breaks down tough connective tissue slowly. Boiling hard toughens muscle fibres and dries the meat, so the liquid should only simmer.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, pepper, flour, butter, potato, olive. 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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