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Leg of Mutton a LA Haulgout

A roasted leg of mutton seasoned with garlic, pepper, sea salt, served with gravy and red wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Leg of Mutton a LA Haulgout

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stuff the leg of mutton all over with cloves of garlic.

  2. Rub it with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the mutton until done.

  2. Put good gravy and red wine in the dish.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  3. Clove + red winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Pepper + red winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Is the main cut of meat, providing the bulk and rich flavour of the dish.
Cloves of garlic
Stuffed into the meat to perfume it as it roasts, adding aroma and savoury depth.
Red wine
Added to the dish with the gravy, contributing acidity and depth to the pan sauce.
Good gravy
Adds moisture and savoury body to the dish's sauce.

The step that matters

Roast the mutton until done. The record gives no time or temperature, so doneness is judged by the meat itself. Overcooking dries lean meat and toughens its proteins, while undercooking leaves it unsafe, so checking the internal temperature is the reliable way to know it is ready.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, clove, pepper, red wine):

  1. Rosemaryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, clove, pepper, red wine. 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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