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Roast Ham of Mutton

A roasted ham made from mutton, seasoned with salt and pepper, cooked in boiling water and oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and mutton work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 430 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Roast Ham of Mutton

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash the ham of mutton and rub it thoroughly with coarse sea salt and sprinkle with pepper.

  2. Place the ham in a roasting pan with 1 quart of boiling water.

Roast

  1. Put in a very hot oven (400°F / 200°C), allowing the heat to gradually decrease to moderate (350°F / 175°C).

  2. Baste often and add more boiling water if needed.

  3. Cook for 3 to 4 hours, depending on the size of the ham.

Serve

  1. Serve with your desired sauce.

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. Ham + muttontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  3. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ham of mutton
Forms the main body of the dish, and its fat and connective tissue soften and moisten during long roasting.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat deeply and helps draw out moisture that can then be reabsorbed, improving flavor.
Boiling water
Creates steam in the pan and keeps the meat moist while the heat is gentle.

The step that matters

Managing the oven temperature drop. Starting very hot and then lowering to moderate browns the surface quickly, then lets the thick meat cook through without drying or burning. Basting and topping up water help keep the surface moist.

“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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