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Breast of Mutton

A roasted, boiled, or stewed mutton breast seasoned with salt, herbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Breast of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Rub the mutton breast with a little coarse sea salt.

  2. Cut off excess fat and joint the meat well.

  3. Cut off the fat, half boil the mutton, remove the bones, and flatten the breast.

  4. Bone the mutton, remove excess fat, and cover it with bread, herbs, and seasoning.

  5. Roll and boil until tender.

Season and roast

  1. Season with pepper and salt.

  2. Brush with egg yolk.

  3. Sprinkle with minced parsley and green onions mixed with bread crumbs.

  4. Roast the mutton.

  5. Sprinkle with chopped parsley while roasting.

  6. Baste with fresh butter and broil in a Dutch oven.

Serve

  1. Serve with stewed cucumbers.

  2. Serve with tomato sauce or sorrel.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton breast
Forms the main body of the dish, with its fat and meat setting the texture as it cooks.
Fresh butter
Adds fat and moisture, helping the surface brown and stay juicy while broiling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and fat and form a crisp, golden crust on the surface.
Egg yolk (in the method)
Adds richness and helps the crust brown and set when brushed on.

The step that matters

Half boil the mutton before flattening. Partial boiling softens the connective tissue so the meat becomes tender enough to bone and flatten without tearing, and it keeps the roll from drying out during the final roasting or broiling.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, onion, bread. 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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