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Roast Shoulder of Mutton

Roast shoulder of mutton seasoned with flour, salt, pepper, and its own dripping, baked at 400°F until cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Roast Shoulder of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Trim the shoulder of mutton, ensuring the ends are even and bones are short.

  3. Flour the mutton well.

Roast

  1. Place the mutton in the oven, basting constantly with its own dripping.

  2. Roast for 1.5 hours, keeping it at a distance from the fire to avoid burning.

Serve

  1. Serve with stewed onions or a side of tomatoes, if desired.

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. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton shoulder
Provides the main meat, whose fat and connective tissue keep the roast moist and rich.
Flour
Coats the surface so it browns and forms a crisp, golden crust in the oven.
Dripping
Fat that bastes the meat, adding moisture and helping the surface brown evenly.

The step that matters

Roast for 1.5 hours, keeping the mutton at a distance from the fire. Too much direct heat scorches the flour coating and outside before the thick joint cooks through, so the meat stays at a moderate distance from the heat source and is basted regularly.

“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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