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Leg of Mutton, Excellent

A leg of mutton cooked with bacon, ham, calf's foot, vegetables, spices, and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Leg of Mutton, Excellent

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Lard the leg of mutton thickly with strips of bacon.

  2. Brown the entire surface in a large frying pan with hot dripping over a brisk fire.

Build the pot

  1. In a pipkin, combine the ham, calf's foot, carrot, turnip, bay leaf, garlic, onions, parsley, thyme, peppercorns, allspice, anchovy, and toasted bread.

  2. Place the leg of mutton on top of these ingredients, large end down.

  3. Add 1½ pints of water, broth, or gravy, and 1 tablespoon of mushroom ketchup.

  4. Cover the pipkin and seal it with a paste of flour and water.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the pipkin on the hob and let it cook for 8 hours.

  2. Serve hot or cold with the gravy strained.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 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

Leg of mutton
Forms the main body of meat that becomes tender during long, slow cooking.
Bacon
Lardings add fat that bastes the meat from within as it cooks.
Calf's foot
Its collagen breaks down into gelatin, giving the gravy body and a silky texture.
Onions
Release sugars and aromatic compounds that deepen the flavour of the gravy.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and aromatic depth to the cooking liquid.
Mushroom ketchup
Contributes concentrated savoury umami flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Sealing the pipkin. A tight flour-and-water seal traps steam so the liquid stays in the pot and the meat cooks gently in moist heat. A leaking lid lets liquid evaporate, so the meat can dry out and the gravy can over-reduce during the long cook.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, ham, carrot, turnip, garlic, onion, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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