Skip to main content
Main

Saddle of Mutton

A roasted saddle of mutton seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, herbs, and bay leaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Saddle of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Hang the saddle of mutton in a cool place for several days to age.

  2. Remove the fat from the inside and decide whether to keep the kidneys.

  3. Split the tail and skewer the pieces back in a ring on either side.

  4. Before roasting, raise the skin and skewer it back on.

Roast and serve

  1. Remove the skin 20 minutes before serving, sprinkle with salt, and dredge with flour.

  2. Roast until done and 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Olive + garlictop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Saddle of mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and juicy when roasted slowly.
Flour
Dredging the surface helps it brown and form a crisp, golden crust.
Olive oil
Fat that carries heat to the surface and helps the outside brown evenly.
Garlic
Adds aroma and savory flavor that penetrates the meat during roasting.

The step that matters

Remove the skin 20 minutes before serving. Timing matters because removing the skin late lets the exposed fat brown and crisp in the oven's dry heat, while the meat stays moist beneath.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, flour, olive, pepper, garlic, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, olive, pepper, garlic, parsley, thyme. 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.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipesCurried MuttonCurried Mutton9 recipes