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Roast Saddle of Mutton

Roast saddle of mutton is a whole mutton joint roasted with optional basting liquid and flour dusting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,695 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells grass, green. The science ↓

Roast Saddle of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. If the butcher has not done so, carefully remove the skin from the saddle of mutton and skewer it back on.

Roast

  1. Roast the mutton, basting frequently to keep it moist.

  2. Ensure the mutton is positioned away from the fire to prevent burning the fat.

  3. About 30 minutes before the mutton is done, remove the skin and lightly dust the joint with flour.

  4. Roast for 1.5 to 2 hours, depending on the size of the joint.

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 + 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

Saddle of mutton
Is the main cut that is roasted, so its size sets the cooking time.
Flour
Lightly dusted on the joint near the end to help form a light crust.

The step that matters

Removing the skin and dusting with flour about 30 minutes before the end. Timing matters: the skin is removed so the surface can brown and crisp, and the flour dusting browns during the final minutes. Doing it too early can dry the meat, and doing it too late leaves the surface pale.

“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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