Name: Saddle of Mutton
Ingredients: 1 saddle of mutton; coarse flour; water; gravy; currant jelly

Why it works: Flour and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,077 recipes. The science ↓

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

Remove the skin from the saddle of mutton with a sharp knife.
Mix coarse flour and water to make a thin paste and cover the meat with it.

Bake and serve

Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until cooked through.
Serve with gravy poured around it and currant jelly on the side.

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.

Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,077 recipes
Mutton + curranttop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together393 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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: Is the main cut of meat that is cooked and served.
Coarse flour: Forms a thin paste that coats the meat during baking.
Currant jelly: Served on the side to add sweetness and acidity to the rich meat.