Name: To Boil a Leg of Mutton
Ingredients: 1 leg of mutton; water (enough to cover the mutton); 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt; 2 medium onions, studded with 12 cloves; 1 large bunch of parsley; 1 sprig of thyme; 1 sprig of savory; 4-5 large carrots, chopped; 4-5 turnips, chopped

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 ↓

To Boil a Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Trim the leg of mutton into a handsome form and wash it without soaking.
Place the mutton in a pot and cover it with cold water.

Cook

Bring the water to a boil, skimming off any scum that rises to the surface.
After the first skimming, add the salt to help clarify the broth.
Once the broth is clear, add the onions, parsley, thyme, savory, carrots, and turnips.
Reduce the heat and let the mutton simmer gently for 2.5 hours.

Serve

Serve with caper, brown cucumber, or oyster 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.

Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,057 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together4,108 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,842 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton: Provides the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, gentle simmering.
Salt: Helps draw out proteins that form scum, aiding a clearer broth.
Carrots: Add natural sweetness and body to the broth as they cook.
Turnips: Contribute mild sweetness and earthy flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum. Scum rising during the initial boil consists of coagulated proteins and impurities. Removing it early keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting, so skim as it forms before adding the salt and vegetables.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, clove, parsley, thyme, carrot, turnip):

Parsnipfits better
Leekfits better
Shallotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, clove, parsley, thyme, carrot, turnip. 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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To Boil a Leg of Mutton