Skip to main content
Main

Leg of Mutton Larded

A slow‑cooked leg of mutton larded with bacon, served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Larded

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Lard the mutton with bacon.

  2. Brown the mutton in a frying pan for 15 minutes, turning constantly.

Bake

  1. Place slices of ham in a baking pan to cover the bottom.

  2. Add carrot, turnip, celery, onion, garlic, parsley, herbs, peppercorns, and cloves.

  3. Position the mutton upright in the pan with the broad end down.

  4. Add calf's foot pieces on each side of the mutton.

  5. Pour in brown gravy and white wine.

  6. Cover the pan tightly and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 7 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with strained gravy or cold with 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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Lean meat that becomes tender and juicy through long, slow, moist cooking.
Bacon
Fat that bastes the lean mutton from within, adding moisture and savoury flavour.
Calf's foot
Adds collagen that melts into gelatin, enriching the gravy and giving body.
White wine
Acidity that helps tenderise the meat and brightens the braising liquid.
Brown gravy
Liquid that keeps the joint moist and builds a rich, savoury sauce.

The step that matters

Cover the pan tightly and bake low and slow. A tight cover traps steam so the joint braises rather than dries out. Slow heat over several hours converts connective tissue into gelatin, giving tender meat instead of tough, stringy meat.

Swap the clove

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

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

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

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipes