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Leg of Mutton Boned and Forced

A leg of mutton stuffed with forcemeat and seasoned with herbs, spices, and lemon rind, then roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 780 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Leg of Mutton Boned and Forced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the leg

  1. Turn the mutton leg upside down and cut through the skin from the knuckle to the first joint.

  2. Raise the skin from the flesh along the bone, cutting down to the bone.

  3. Work the knife around the bone until you reach the socket, then remove the flat bone from the large end.

  4. Loosen the skin around the middle joint carefully to draw out the two bones without dividing them.

Stuff and close

  1. Fill the cavities with forcemeat, adding a high seasoning of eschalot, garlic, or onion.

  2. Alternatively, mix the chopped inside meat with bacon, parsley, thyme, winter savory, pepper, mace, salt, nutmeg, and lemon rind or eschalots.

  3. Sew the skin neatly together where it was cut, and tie the knuckle tightly to prevent gravy from escaping.

  4. Replace the flat bone at the large end and use a long needle and twine to draw the edges of the meat together over it.

Roast

  1. Roast the prepared mutton in a cradle spit or on a hanging or bottle-jack, with the knuckle down.

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. Thyme + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together863 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 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

Mutton leg
Forms the main body of the dish, and its skin is cut and resewn around the stuffing.
Inside meat of mutton
Chopped finely to make a moist, binding forcemeat that fills the cavities.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury richness, keeping the chopped stuffing moist during roasting.
Eschalot, garlic, or onion
Adds aromatic sharpness and flavour to the forcemeat.
Parsley, thyme, and winter savory
Add fresh herbal aroma that balances the rich meat and fat.

The step that matters

Tying the knuckle and closing the skin. If the skin and knuckle are not sewn and tied tightly, the stuffing and juices can escape during roasting, leaving the meat dry and the gravy lost.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, garlic, meat, parsley, thyme, winter savory, pepper. 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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