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Roasted Mutton

Roasted mutton served with gravy and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,078 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Roasted Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Prepare the mutton for roasting as you would beef.

Roast and serve

  1. Cover the mutton tightly for part of the cooking time to retain juices.

  2. Serve with gravy made from the drippings, thickened with browned flour.

  3. Flavor the gravy with pungent sauces or catsup.

  4. Accompany with currant jelly.

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 + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Mutton + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  3. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes
  4. Mutton + curranttop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Is the main meat, cooked whole by roasting so it stays tender and juicy.
Browned flour
Thickens the drippings into gravy and adds a toasty, nutty flavor.
Pungent sauces or catsup
Adds sharp, tangy acidity and savory depth to the gravy.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity that balances the rich, fatty meat.

The step that matters

Cover the mutton tightly for part of the cooking time. Covering traps steam around the meat, keeping the surface from drying out while the inside cooks through. Uncover for part of the time so the outside can brown.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, sauce. 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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