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Braised Leg of Mutton

A braised mutton leg cooked with bacon, onions, carrots, herbs, and gravy, optionally served with beans or a garlic ragout.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Braised Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove the bone from the leg of mutton up to the first joint.

  2. Roll large strips of bacon in mixed spice and minced savory herbs.

  3. Lard the inside of the boned joint. Alternatively, fill the cavity with highly seasoned forcemeat.

  4. Sew up the meat.

Braise

  1. Place the sewn meat in a braising pan with bacon slices underneath and on top.

  2. Add sliced onions, carrots, bay leaves, savory herbs, bones, and ¾ pint of gravy.

  3. Stew the meat gently for 4 to 5 hours, keeping it in a moderately heated oven.

Finish and serve

  1. Lift the meat out of the pan.

  2. Strain the gravy.

  3. Reduce the gravy quickly to a glaze.

  4. Brush the glaze over the meat, or simply pour it over the mutton.

  5. Serve with boiled white beans or a mild ragout of garlic or eschalots if desired.

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 + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Carrot + beanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Beans + garlictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,935 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Onion + beanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, slow stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the meat as it braises.
Onions
Build sweetness and aromatic depth in the braising liquid as they soften.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and body to the gravy as they cook down.
Gravy
Provides moisture and liquid for braising, later reduced into a flavorful glaze.

The step that matters

Stew gently for 4 to 5 hours. Low, moderate heat over a long period breaks down the tough connective tissue in mutton, making it tender. Boiling or rushing the heat would toughen the muscle fibers and dry the meat.

Swap the beans

The recipe marks beans as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, carrot, garlic):

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Sesamefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, carrot, garlic. 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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