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Stewed Leg- of Mutton

A slow‑cooked stew of leg of mutton with ham, carrots, onions, herbs, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Leg- of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Brown the mutton in butter for a few minutes.

  2. Add the ham, carrots, onions, bay leaves, thyme, parsley, leek, celery, cloves, pepper, salt, gravy, and white wine.

Stew

  1. Cover the saucepan with paper and place the lid on top.

  2. Stew gently for 5 to 7 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, skim the gravy and strain it through a fine sieve.

  2. Serve the gravy around the mutton.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Thyme + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together360 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Butter
Browns the mutton surface, adding color and roasted flavor before stewing.
White wine
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and helps lift the flavors of the stew.
Gravy
Supplies liquid for the stew, keeping the meat moist during the long cooking.
Leek
Adds a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 5 to 7 hours. Low, slow heat lets the tough connective tissue in the mutton break down gradually, making it tender. Boiling instead would toughen the meat and cloud the gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, carrot, thyme, parsley, leek, celery, clove):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, carrot, thyme, parsley, leek, celery, clove. 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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