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Leg of Mutton Boned and Forced

A leg of mutton is boned, stuffed with forcemeat or a bacon and herb mixture, then roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Leg of Mutton Boned and Forced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the leg

  1. Turn the mutton leg upside down and cut through the skin from the knuckle to the first joint.

  2. Raise the skin from the flesh along the bone, cutting down to the bone.

  3. Work the knife around the bone until you reach the socket, then remove the flat bone from the large end.

  4. Loosen the skin around the middle joint carefully to draw out the two bones without dividing them.

Make and fill the stuffing

  1. Chop the mutton trimmings and bacon finely.

  2. Mix the chopped trimmings and bacon with parsley, thyme, winter‑savory, pepper, mace, salt, nutmeg, and lemon rind or eschalots.

  3. Fill the cavities with forcemeat, adding seasoning of eschalot, garlic, or onion.

Close and roast

  1. Sew the skin neatly together where it was cut open.

  2. Tie the knuckle tightly to prevent gravy escape.

  3. Replace the flat bone at the large end.

  4. Use a long needle and twine to draw the meat edges together over it.

  5. Roast the prepared mutton in a cradle‑spit or hanging jack with the knuckle downwards.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton leg
Forms the main body of the joint, providing the meat that is cooked and carved.
Mutton trimmings
Chopped fine to bind into the stuffing, adding meaty body and moisture.
Striped bacon
Adds fat that keeps the chopped stuffing moist and rich during roasting.
Forcemeat
Fills the cavities, giving the joint a seasoned, moist interior.
Eschalot
Adds aromatic savoury flavour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Tying the knuckle and closing the skin. If the knuckle and cut skin are not sealed firmly, juices and fat can escape during roasting, drying the meat and losing the gravy the joint relies on for moisture.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, garlic, parsley, thyme, pepper, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, garlic, parsley, thyme, pepper, nutmeg, lemon. 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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