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Roast Shoulder of Mutton

A roasted shoulder of mutton coated with beaten egg and seasoned breadcrumbs, served with brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,488 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Roast Shoulder 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 the joint

  1. Roast the shoulder of mutton in the usual way.

  2. Carve the meat from the shank end, not higher than where the bone juts out.

  3. Trim away the outer fat to shape the joint neatly.

  4. Remove the skin and brush the surface with beaten egg.

  5. Sprinkle seasoned bread crumbs thickly over the meat.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour and 15 minutes until hot throughout.

  2. Serve with brown gravy poured around the joint and the rest in a tureen.

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 + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Mutton + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Shoulder of mutton
Provides the main body of the dish, and its meat is what the rest of the dish is built around.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs stick to the meat surface.
Seasoned bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust over the meat as they bake.
Brown gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the sliced meat when served.

The step that matters

Sprinkling the bread crumbs over the meat. Crumbs packed on too thickly or left unbound with egg can fall off or bake dry and pasty instead of forming an even crust, so the egg layer must be applied first.

“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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