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To Dress Haunch of Mutton

A haunch of mutton is washed, wrapped, roasted, and served with a gravy made from the loin and burnt sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Dress Haunch of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the haunch

  1. Wash the haunch with warm milk and water or vinegar if necessary.

  2. Wrap the haunch in a paste made of coarse flour or strong paper.

Roast

  1. Place it on a cradle spit at a distance from the fire.

  2. Cook for a proportional time, removing the paste 35-40 minutes before serving.

  3. Baste the haunch continually as it cooks.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Make gravy by simmering the loin of mutton in water until reduced by half, seasoning only with salt.

  2. Brown the gravy with a little burnt sugar and serve it with the haunch.

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. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

  4. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
The main joint, cooked slowly so its meat becomes tender and juicy.
Loin of old mutton
Simmered in water to make a flavourful, concentrated stock for the gravy.
Burnt sugar
Adds a deep brown colour and slightly bittersweet flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Removing the paste 35-40 minutes before serving. The paste protects the meat from drying and scorching early on, but it must come off near the end so the surface can brown and crisp. Removing it too early dries the meat, while leaving it on too long leaves the joint pale and soft.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, sugar, sauce):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, sugar, sauce. 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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