Skip to main content
Main

Braised Leg of Mutton

A braised leg of mutton stuffed with seasoned forcemeat, bacon, and herbs, simmered slowly and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Garlic and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Braised Leg 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 the meat

  1. Remove the bone from the leg of mutton up to the first joint.

  2. Roll strips of bacon in mixed spice and minced savoury herbs.

  3. Lard the inside of the boned leg.

  4. Fill the cavity with highly seasoned forcemeat.

  5. Sew up the meat.

Braise

  1. Place the meat in a braising pan with bacon slices underneath and on top.

  2. Add onions, carrots, bay leaves, savoury herbs, bones, and gravy.

  3. Stew the meat gently for 4 to 5 hours, keeping it warm in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  4. Lift the meat out.

  5. Strain the gravy.

  6. Reduce the strained gravy to a glaze.

  7. Brush the meat with the glaze.

  8. Pour the strained gravy over the meat.

Serve

  1. Serve with boiled white beans or a mild ragout of garlic or eschalots underneath.

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. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Garlic + carrottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Mutton + carrottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,878 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender and moist through slow stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that bastes the meat as it cooks.
Forcemeat
Adds seasoned richness inside the meat and helps keep the joint moist.
Onions
Build a savoury, aromatic base that flavours the braising liquid.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and body to the braising liquid.
Gravy
Provides the liquid that braises the meat and, reduced, becomes a glaze.

The step that matters

Reduce the strained gravy to a glaze. Reducing concentrates flavour and gelatin as water evaporates. If it is reduced too far it turns sticky and bitter, and if too little it stays thin and will not coat the meat.

Swap the carrot

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, garlic, onion. 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.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipes