Skip to main content
Main

Braized Leg of Mutton, a LA Provencale

Braised leg of mutton with Provençal seasoning, served with a sauce of stock, sherry, and clarified cooking liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 21 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Braized Leg of Mutton, a LA Provencale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Bone the leg of mutton, removing the thigh bone and scraping the end of the remaining bone.

  2. Interlard the interior with seasoned lardoons or ham, then fill with Provençal stuffing and sew the opening shut.

Braise

  1. Place the leg in a braising pan with carrots, turnips, celery, cloves, mace, faggots, and garlic.

  2. Moisten with sherry and stock, cover with buttered paper and a lid, and bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer gently for about 4 hours, moistening frequently with the cooking liquid.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer the mutton to a baking sheet with some cooking liquid and keep warm.

  2. Strain the remaining liquid, remove fat, clarify, and reduce to half glaze.

  3. Serve the mutton garnished with tomatoes or mushrooms, and pour the Gasconne sauce underneath.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton leg
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow braising.
Lardoons or ham
Adds fat and salty, savoury flavour inside the lean meat as it cooks.
Sherry
Adds acidity and depth to the braising liquid, which reduces into the glaze.
Stock
Supplies moisture and savoury body to the braising liquid and the resulting sauce.
Mushrooms
Contribute savoury, earthy flavour to the stuffing and the finished dish.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for about 4 hours. A gentle simmer breaks down the tough connective tissue in the mutton slowly. A hard boil toughens and dries the meat and makes the liquid cloudy, so the heat must stay low.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, ham, mushroom, parsley, shallot, lemon, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, ham, mushroom, parsley, shallot, lemon, 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipes