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Roast Leg of Mutton

A roasted leg of mutton seasoned with flour, salt, pepper, and water, cooked in a hot oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Roast Leg of Mutton

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cut the bone of the leg of mutton short.

  2. Wipe the meat with cold water and dredge it with flour.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Roast

  1. Place in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  2. Add 1 cup of hot water to the pan and baste frequently.

  3. Roast for 10 minutes per pound for rare, or 15 minutes per pound for well done.

Serve

  1. Garnish the bone with a paper frill or a bunch of watercress or parsley.

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

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

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mutton + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Provides the main body of meat, which cooks through and becomes tender with roasting.
Flour
Dredging coats the surface so it browns and forms a crust in the hot oven.
Hot water
Added to the pan, it creates steam and moisture while basting keeps the surface from drying.

The step that matters

Roast for 10 minutes per pound for rare, or 15 minutes per pound for well done.. Meat continues to cook after leaving the oven, and the timing per pound determines doneness. Checking the thickest part helps avoid overcooking the lean meat.

“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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