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Pr4sal6 Leg of Mutton

A roasted leg of mutton seasoned with garlic, coarse sea salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,090 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pr4sal6 Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Season the leg of mutton with crushed garlic, coarse sea salt, and pepper.

Roast and rest

  1. Place the leg in a roasting pan and roast for about 1.5 to 2 hours, or until cooked to your liking.

  2. Let it rest for 10 minutes before carving.

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 + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mutton + garlictop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together673 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Is the main cut of meat, providing the bulk and flavour of the dish.
Garlic
Adds aromatic pungency that mellows and deepens in flavour during roasting.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and helps draw out moisture to form a flavourful surface.

The step that matters

Let it rest for 10 minutes before carving. During roasting, muscle fibres tighten and juices move toward the surface. Resting lets the juices redistribute, so carved slices stay moister instead of spilling their juices onto the board.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper. 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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