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Roast Leg of Mutton

Roast leg of mutton seasoned with optional garlic, eschalots, sage, broth, and sea salt, cooked over fire and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 731 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Roast Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Saw off the shank-bone two inches below the knuckle.

  2. Insert garlic or wrapped eschalots and sage leaves into the meat if desired.

  3. Sprinkle the mutton with coarse sea salt.

Roast

  1. Place the leg of mutton before a sharp fire for 10 minutes to seal in the juices.

  2. Move it a short distance away to finish roasting.

  3. Five to ten minutes before removing from the fire, add ½ cup of broth to the dripping pan.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Skim off all the fat from the dripping pan.

  2. Strain the gravy over the meat before serving.

  3. Transfer the mutton to a serving dish.

  4. Place a white paper frill around the knuckle-bone.

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. Clove + sagetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together731 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Garlic + sagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

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

  3. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  5. Mutton + clovetop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Forms the main body of the roast, carrying most of the flavour and juice.
Broth
Adds moisture and liquid to the dripping pan for building the gravy.
Garlic
Adds aroma and savoury flavour that infuses the meat as it roasts.
Eschalots
Add mild sweetness and aroma that soften and perfume the meat while roasting.

The step that matters

Searing over a sharp fire. The initial high heat browns the surface and seals in juices, so the roast is not dry. Moving it to gentler heat afterward lets the centre cook through without burning the outside.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, garlic, sage):

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, garlic, sage. 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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