Skip to main content
Main

Haunch, Roast

A roast haunch of Southdown mutton cooked over a fire, basted with dripping and butter, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Haunch, Roast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dust the haunch with flour and rub it with a dry cloth several times to keep it dry.

  2. When ready to cook, skin the loin and wipe it dry.

  3. Cover the haunch with white paper or a paste made of flour and water.

Roast

  1. Place it on a spit or hang it before a vigorous fire for the first 30 minutes, basting constantly with meat dripping.

  2. Remove the paper half an hour before it's done and brown slightly.

  3. Dredge the haunch with flour and baste copiously with butter, pouring off the dripping from the pan first.

  4. Sprinkle with a little salt.

  5. Cook for 12 to 15 minutes per pound, or 18 minutes for well done.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, making gravy in the pan with the drippings and boiling broth, seasoning with salt and pepper.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mutton + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Mutton haunch
Forms the main body of the roast, providing the meat that is cooked and carved.
Flour
Dusted on the surface to help form a protective crust that promotes browning.
Butter
Basted over the meat to add fat, moisture and richness to the browning surface.
Meat dripping
Basted during the first stage to keep the surface moist and add roasted flavour.
Boiling broth
Added to the pan drippings to make a flavourful gravy.

The step that matters

Keeping the haunch dry before roasting. Wiping the meat dry and covering it with paper or paste limits surface moisture, so the outside can brown rather than steam while the interior cooks.

“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 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipes