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Leg Mutton, Cauliflower and Spinach

A stew of leg of mutton with cauliflower and spinach, cooked in butter, milk, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Leg Mutton, Cauliflower and Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the components

  1. Cut the leg of mutton in a venison fashion and boil it in a cloth.

  2. Boil the cauliflowers in milk and water until tender.

  3. Pull the cauliflowers into sprigs and stew them with butter, pepper, salt, and a little milk.

  4. Stew the spinach in a saucepan with gravy, butter, and flour.

Assemble and serve

  1. When done, place the mutton in the center of a dish, surround it with spinach, and top with cauliflower.

  2. Pour the butter from the cauliflower over the dish to create a smooth cream appearance.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cauliflower + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,113 recipes

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

  3. Cauliflower + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow boiling.
Cauliflower
Softens into tender florets that give the topping its body and mild flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the vegetables and sauce.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so the spinach is coated in a smooth, cohesive sauce.

The step that matters

Stewing the spinach with flour. Flour thickens liquid only when it is evenly dispersed and cooked through. Mixing it well into the hot gravy before stewing prevents lumps and gives a smooth, clinging sauce.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, milk, butter, pepper, flour):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, milk, butter, pepper, flour. 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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