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Haunch of Mutton a LA Venison

A preserved mutton haunch cured with celery salt and brown sugar, then roasted in pastry and served with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓

Haunch of Mutton a LA Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the mutton

  1. Mix celery salt with brown sugar and rub it into the mutton.

  2. Place the mutton in a deep dish for 4 days, basting 3 or 4 times daily with the draining liquid.

  3. Wipe the mutton dry and rub in ¼ pound more brown sugar mixed with common salt.

  4. Hang the mutton haunch downwards and wipe it daily until used.

Roast and serve

  1. In winter, keep it for 2 to 3 weeks and roast it in pastry like venison.

  2. Serve with currant jelly, removing the pastry 15 minutes before serving.

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. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes
  2. Celery + curranttop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together159 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Celery + sugartop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,794 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and currant barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps form a flavourful crust on the surface of the meat.
Celery salt
Seasons the meat and draws moisture out during the cure, concentrating flavour.
Common salt
Cures the meat by drawing out moisture and firming its texture.
Currant jelly
Adds tart sweetness that balances the rich, gamey flavour of the meat.

The step that matters

Wiping the mutton dry before the second rub. If the surface is left damp, the sugar and salt will not adhere well and the cure will be uneven, so the meat must be dried before the second coating is applied.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, currant. 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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