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Boiled Leg of Mutton

A boiled leg of mutton cooked with herbs, carrots, turnip, onions, and caper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Boiled Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the leg

  1. Cut off the shank bone from the leg of mutton and trim it.

  2. Make an incision at the first joint to cut the sinews.

  3. Tie the leg in a cloth.

Boil

  1. Place it in a saucepan with enough cold water to cover, slightly salted.

  2. Add the washed and cleaned herbs and vegetables.

  3. Bring to a boil, then cook for about 1.5 hours, or according to size.

  4. For a 6-pound leg, cook for 15 minutes per pound.

  5. Once boiling, reduce heat to a gentle simmer for the remainder of the cooking time.

Serve

  1. When cooked, remove the leg, take off the cloth, and place it on a dish.

  2. Cover the leg with the cloth and place the dish over the saucepan.

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. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  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, becoming tender and juicy as it simmers slowly.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma to the cooking liquid.
Caper sauce
Adds acidity and a sharp, salty contrast to the rich mutton.

The step that matters

Simmering after boiling. Once the water reaches a boil, lowering to a gentle simmer keeps the meat tender. A hard, rolling boil toughens muscle fibres and can make the outside break apart before the centre is cooked.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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