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Leg of Mutton Braised

A braised leg of mutton cooked with butter or bacon, onion, herbs, and gravy, served with garlic vegetable purée.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,901 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Leg of Mutton Braised

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut off the knuckle from the leg of mutton and trim it nicely.

  2. Half roast the leg of mutton.

Braise

  1. Place the mutton in a stewpan with the broken knuckle-bone, trimmings, butter or bacon, onion, and sweet herbs.

  2. Shake the stewpan over the fire until there is enough gravy to stew the mutton, turning it occasionally.

  3. Once tender, remove the mutton and strain the gravy, removing any fat.

Finish and serve

  1. Boil the gravy quickly until reduced to a glaze.

  2. Cover the mutton with the glaze and serve with a purée of garlic vegetables.

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. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

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

  5. Butter + clovetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,045 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 that is braised until tender and carved for serving.
Knuckle-bone
Adds body and savoury depth to the gravy as it simmers with the meat.
Butter or fat bacon
Supplies fat that carries flavour and helps the meat brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Reducing the gravy to a glaze. Boiling quickly concentrates the strained gravy into a thick glaze. If it is reduced too little it stays thin, and if it is reduced too far it turns salty and sticky, so watch it closely.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, onion. 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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