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To Eoast a Leg of Mutton

A leg of mutton is hung, seasoned, roasted, basted, and served with salt and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Eoast a Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Hang the leg of mutton in a cool, airy place for several days, removing the kernel and drying the flap.

  2. Dredge the mutton with black pepper to keep flies away, especially in warm weather.

  3. If washed, dry the mutton thoroughly and flour it before placing it on the spit.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the mutton at a distance from the fire for four hours, moving it closer for the last 20-30 minutes to brown.

  2. Baste the mutton with its own fat regularly to ensure a good roast.

  3. Once cooked, sprinkle lightly with coarse sea salt and ladle a spoonful or two of boiling water over it before serving.

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

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

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. 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

Leg of mutton
Forms the main meat; its fat bastes the joint and drives browning as it roasts.
Flour
Dusted on the dried meat, it helps form a crust that browns during roasting.
Black pepper
Dredged over the meat to keep flies away, and adds a sharp, aromatic seasoning.
Coarse sea salt
Sprinkled on after cooking to season the surface lightly.

The step that matters

Moving the mutton closer to the fire for the last 20-30 minutes. Roasting at a distance cooks the joint gently, but the final close heat is what browns the surface. Moving it too early, or too late, can leave the crust pale or scorched.

“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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