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Braised Leg- of Mutton

A slow‑cooked mutton leg with onion, carrot, turnip, sweet herbs, and butter, simmered for 8–9 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Braised Leg- of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Butter the leg of mutton and place it in a saucepan with the onion, carrot, turnip, and sweet herbs.

  2. Cover the saucepan tightly and let it simmer by the side of the fire for 8 to 9 hours.

  3. Do not add any water. The mutton will appear like a roasted joint with rich gravy when done.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Clove + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Clove + turniptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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 leg
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and tender-textured through long slow simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the meat brown lightly on its surface.
Onion
Releases sweetness and aromatic flavour into the braising liquid as it cooks down.
Carrot
Adds natural sweetness and body to the gravy as it softens over the long cook.
Turnip
Contributes mild sweetness and earthy flavour that blends into the gravy.

The step that matters

Keeping the lid tight and skipping water. The tightly covered pan traps the meat's own juices and steam, so the gravy forms from them. Adding water would dilute that liquid and weaken the flavour, while a loose lid lets moisture escape and the meat dry out over 8 to 9 hours.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, carrot, turnip, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, carrot, turnip, butter. 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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