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Leg of Mutton Boned and Forced

A leg of mutton that has been boned, stuffed with forcemeat, and roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 780 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Leg of Mutton Boned and Forced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the leg

  1. Turn the leg of mutton skin-side up.

  2. Cut through the skin from the knuckle to the first joint.

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

  4. Work the knife around the bone until you reach the socket.

  5. Remove the flat bone from the large end of the joint.

  6. Loosen the skin around the middle joint carefully.

  7. Draw out the two bones without dividing them.

Stuff and close

  1. Fill the cavities with forcemeat, adding a high seasoning of eschalot, garlic, or onion.

  2. Alternatively, chop nearly a pound of the inside mutton with the bacon and mix with parsley, thyme, winter savory, pepper, mace, salt, nutmeg, and lemon rind or eschalots.

  3. Sew the skin neatly together where it was cut open and tie the knuckle tightly to prevent gravy from escaping.

  4. Replace the flat bone at the large end and use a long needle and twine to draw the edges of the meat together over it.

Roast

  1. Roast the prepared mutton on a spit or hanging jack if possible.

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. Thyme + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  4. Winter savory + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Forms the main body of the dish, carrying the stuffing and cooking as the roast.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that keeps the forcemeat moist as it cooks.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aromatic flavour that balances the rich meat and fat.
Parsley
Adds fresh herbal aroma and a light green flavour to the forcemeat.
Thyme
Adds a warm, aromatic herbal note that complements the mutton.

The step that matters

Sew and tie the skin tightly. If the skin and knuckle are not closed firmly, juices and fat can escape during roasting, drying the meat and losing flavour in the gravy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, parsley, thyme, winter savory, 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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