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Stuffed Breast of Mutton or Lamb

A roasted breast of mutton or lamb stuffed with veal forcemeat, served with a stock-based gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stuffed Breast of Mutton or Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Bone the meat.

  2. Lay the forcemeat over it.

  3. Roll it up neatly.

  4. Tie or skewer it.

  5. Fry in a little dripping until browned.

Make the gravy

  1. Slice the onion.

  2. Fry the onion.

  3. Combine the bones, fried onion, and hot stock in a pan.

  4. Simmer gently for 1½ hours.

  5. Thicken the gravy with flour.

  6. Season well.

  7. Let it boil.

Serve

  1. Dish up the meat.

  2. Strain the gravy over it.

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. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Mutton + vealtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,394 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

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

  4. Onion + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton or lamb breast
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle simmering.
Veal forcemeat
Adds moisture and savoury richness to the stuffing inside the rolled meat.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma to the gravy as it fries and softens.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy by swelling with heat.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with flour. Flour should be blended smoothly into the hot liquid to avoid lumps. Simmering lets the starch swell fully and cooks off the raw floury taste, giving a glossy, properly thickened gravy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, veal, pepper, flour):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, veal, pepper, flour. 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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