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Roast Mutton, Stuffed

A roast mutton shoulder stuffed with bread crumbs, pork, and herbs, baked and served with a browned flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,239 recipes. Both carry 1-nonanal, which smells fatty, waxy. The science ↓

Roast Mutton, Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Make a dressing by mixing bread crumbs, chopped pork, pepper, coarse sea salt, and sweet herbs.

  2. Sew the edges of the opening in the mutton to keep the stuffing from escaping.

Roast

  1. Place the mutton in a baking pan and pour 1 cup of boiling water over it.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 minutes per pound, basting frequently.

  3. Once done, transfer the mutton to a platter and keep warm.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Skim and strain the gravy, then thicken it with browned flour.

  2. Pour some gravy over the meat and serve the rest separately.

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 + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

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

  3. Bread + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton shoulder
Forms the main body of the dish, and its slow roasting makes the meat tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and soften in the dressing, giving the stuffing a moist, bound texture.
Chopped pork
Adds fat to the stuffing, keeping it moist and richer in flavour as it cooks.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, deeper flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Sewing the opening closed. If the seams are loose, the stuffing can escape and swell or leak into the pan during roasting, so the opening must be closed firmly before the meat goes in the oven.

“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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