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To Roast a Leg of Mutton with Oysters and Cockles

A roast leg of mutton stuffed with oysters and garnished with horse-radish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Horse and radish work together. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 529 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

To Roast a Leg of Mutton with Oysters and Cockles

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stuff the leg of mutton with oysters.

  2. Roast the stuffed leg of mutton until cooked through.

  3. Garnish with horse-radish before serving.

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. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Mutton + oystertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Mutton + horsetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13 recipes

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

  4. Oyster + horsetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Oyster + radishtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Forms the main body of the dish, providing savoury, rich meat flavour and a firm texture when roasted.
Oysters
Add a briny, salty flavour that seasons the meat from within as it roasts.

The step that matters

Roasting the stuffed leg until cooked through. Stuffing adds dense, insulated pockets that slow heat from reaching the centre of the joint. The meat and oysters must both reach a safe, fully cooked temperature throughout, so the thickest part should be checked rather than judged by the outside colour.

Swap the radish

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

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Radishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, oyster, horse. 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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