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Leg Oe Mutton

A boiled leg of mutton served with root vegetables, mashed turnip eggs, gravy, and caper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Leg Oe Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the mutton

  1. Place a trimmed leg of mutton in a large pot and cover with cold water.

  2. Bring to a boil and skim the surface.

  3. Add salt, carrots, turnips, and parsnips.

  4. Boil for about 2.5 hours until done.

Prepare and serve

  1. Mix mashed turnips with flour, butter, cream, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

  2. Shape mashed turnips into large eggs and arrange them in a circle around the dish.

  3. Insert boiled carrot pieces between the turnips.

  4. Dish up with a paper ruffle on the shank-bone.

  5. Pour gravy underneath and serve with caper 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. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsnip + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together98 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Carrot + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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 meat, which becomes tender through long gentle boiling.
Turnips
Mashed with flour and cream, they give the shaped eggs a thick, smooth body.
Flour
Thickens the mashed turnips so they hold their shape when formed.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the mashed turnips, softening their texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the mashed turnips, giving a silky mouthfeel.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour as boiled pieces set between the turnips.

The step that matters

Boil for about 2.5 hours until done. Mutton is a tough cut, and long, steady simmering in water breaks down connective tissue so the meat becomes tender. Boiling too hard can toughen the meat and make it fall apart unevenly, so keep the water at a gentle simmer after the initial boil.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, turnip, parsnip, flour, butter, cream):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, turnip, parsnip, flour, butter, cream. 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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