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Haunch of Mutton

A haunch of mutton roasted over a fire, basted with dripping and finished with flour, salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Haunch of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cover the haunch of mutton with two large sheets of well-greased paper.

  2. Place it in a cradle-spit and roast it before a good fire for about 2 hours and 15 minutes, keeping it 18 inches from the fire.

  3. Baste the joint with dripping every 5 minutes.

  4. About 10 minutes before removing it from the heat, take off the paper, dredge the meat with flour, and sprinkle a little coarse sea salt over the surface.

  5. Using a large spoon with holes, drop some dissolved butter over the meat to achieve a brown, frothy appearance.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Mutton + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Haunch of mutton
Is the main cut of meat that is cooked and served as the dish.
Flour
Dredging the surface helps form a dry, crisp, browned crust.
Dissolved butter
Basting with melted fat promotes browning and gives the surface a frothy, glossy appearance.
Dripping (in the method)
Basting with rendered fat keeps the surface moist and encourages even browning.

The step that matters

Taking off the paper and dredging with flour. The paper must come off only about 10 minutes before the end so the surface can dry and brown. Flour and butter on a surface still covered or too early will steam or burn rather than form a crisp crust.

“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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