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To Roast Mutton Venison-fashion

A roast mutton quarter marinated in red wine and butter, cooked over a quick fire.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Red wine and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,599 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Roast Mutton Venison-fashion

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the leg of the mutton like a haunch and place it in a pan with the backside down.

  2. Pour the red wine over the mutton and let it marinate for 24 hours.

Roast and serve

  1. Spit the mutton and roast it over a quick fire, basting with the wine and butter throughout the cooking.

  2. Roast for 1.5 hours.

  3. Serve with gravy and sweet sauce.

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. Red wine + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,599 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + red winetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Forms the main meat that becomes tender and browned during slow roasting.
Red wine
Marinates the meat, adding acidity and flavour that penetrate its surface.
Butter
Adds fat for basting, promoting moisture and browning on the roasting surface.

The step that matters

Basting with wine and butter throughout the roast. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly, so the outside does not dry or burn before the inside is cooked through over the quick fire.

“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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