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 Op Mutton
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Hang the haunch in a cool place for 10 days.
Remove the thin skin and saw off the shank bone.
Cover the haunch with well-greased paper.
Roast
Hang it a yard away from a clear roasting fire for about 2.5 hours.
Baste with dripping every 5 to 6 minutes.
Ten minutes before it is done, remove the paper, sprinkle with salt and flour, and baste with melted butter until brown and frothy.
Serve
Serve with gravy and red currant jelly.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,781 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + red curranttop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together495 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Flour + red curranttop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together394 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mutton + red curranttop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together82 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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 slowly roasted and carved for the dish.
- Dripping
- Bastes the meat with fat so the surface stays moist and browns evenly.
- Butter
- Melted and basted on at the end to brown the surface and give it a frothy finish.
- Flour
- Sprinkled on with the butter to help form a browned, crisp crust.
- Red currant jelly
- Adds a tart-sweet contrast that cuts the richness of the roasted mutton.
The step that matters
Removing the paper and basting with butter at the end. Removing the paper ten minutes before the end lets the surface dry and brown. Basting with butter and flour then browns the crust. Doing this too early leaves the meat pale, and too late leaves the crust burnt or uneven.
Swap the red currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, flour, butter):
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Red currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, butter. 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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