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Leg of Mutton Stew

A stew of leg of mutton simmered with broth, brandy, onions, carrot, herbs, garlic, and port, served with forcemeat balls, haricots verts, and mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and turkey work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 75 recipes mention both. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the bone from the leg of mutton and tie the meat into shape.

  2. Place the mutton in a stewing pan and add enough broth to half cover it.

  3. Add brandy, onions, carrot, herbs, peppercorns, parsley, garlic, and port to the pan.

Cook and make the gravy

  1. Cover the pan and cook slowly, keeping it below boiling point until done.

  2. Strain the cooking sauce, thicken it with red currant jelly, anchovy vinegar, and port.

Serve

  1. Serve the mutton garnished with fried turkey forcemeat balls and pour the gravy around it.

  2. Accompany with haricots verts and mashed potatoes.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Mutton + turkeytop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together9,294 recipes

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

  5. Onion + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together21,599 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the rich meat that becomes tender during long, slow, moist cooking.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy, balancing the savoury sauce.
Anchovy vinegar
Adds acidity and savoury depth that brightens the thickened gravy.
Port
Adds sweetness, colour and fruity depth to the sauce.
Broth
Provides moisture and savoury flavour as the mutton cooks.

The step that matters

Keep the pan below boiling point. Gentle heat lets the tough connective tissue in the mutton break down slowly into tender meat. A rolling boil toughens the muscle fibres and can dry out the sauce.

Flavor stand-ins for the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, brandy, onion, carrot, parsley, garlic, anchovy):

  1. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  2. Limebetter flavor fit
  3. Orangeabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, brandy, onion, carrot, parsley, garlic, anchovy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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