Name: To Dress Haunch of Mutton
Ingredients: 1 haunch of mutton; coarse flour (for paste); 1½ pounds loin of old mutton; 1 pint water; salt to taste; burnt sugar (for browning); currant-jelly sauce (for serving)

Why it works: Sugar and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Dress Haunch of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the haunch

Wash the haunch of mutton well to remove any bad flavor.
Make a paste with coarse flour and cover the haunch.

Roast

Place the haunch a good distance from the fire and cook for 35‑40 minutes, basting continually.
Bring the haunch closer to the fire before removing the paste and froth it up like venison.
Ensure there is plenty of gravy in the meat.

Make the gravy and serve

Simmer the loin of mutton in water until reduced by half, seasoning only with salt.
Brown the gravy with a little burnt sugar and serve it with the haunch.

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.

Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,147 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,078 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mutton + saucetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,087 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).
Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,077 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Haunch of mutton: Is the main cut of meat that is roasted and carved for the dish.
Loin of old mutton: Is simmered in water to make the broth that forms the gravy.
Coarse flour: Forms a paste that covers the haunch and protects it during roasting.
Burnt sugar: Darkens the gravy and adds a slightly bittersweet caramel flavor.

The step that matters

Bring the haunch closer to the fire before removing the paste. Moving the meat nearer the heat at the end lets the surface brown and crisp once the protective paste is removed, so it does not finish pale and soft.

Swap the currant

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, sugar, 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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To Dress Haunch of Mutton