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Roast Saddle of Mutton

Roast Saddle of Mutton is a roasted mutton joint seasoned with salt and dusted with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 29% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,695 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells grass, green. The science ↓

Roast Saddle of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. If the butcher has not already done so, carefully remove the skin from the saddle of mutton and skewer it back on.

Roast

  1. Roast the mutton, basting it frequently to preserve the juices and prevent burning.

  2. About 30 minutes before the mutton is done, remove the skin and lightly dust the joint with flour.

  3. Ensure the mutton is kept at a distance from the fire to avoid burning the fat.

  4. Roast for 2 to 2.5 hours, depending on the size of the joint.

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 + 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

Saddle of mutton
Forms the bulk of the dish, and its fat renders and bastes the meat as it roasts.
Flour
Lightly dusted on the surface, it helps the joint brown and form a crisp crust.

The step that matters

Basting frequently while keeping the mutton away from the fire. Basting moistens the surface and carries heat across it, which slows drying and scorching. Placing the joint too close to the fire burns the fat before the meat cooks through, so the distance and the basting work together.

“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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