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Braised Leg of Mutton

A braised leg of mutton cooked slowly with bacon, onions, carrots, herbs, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and carrot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 21,601 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Braised Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove the bone from the leg of mutton up to the first joint.

  2. Roll bacon strips in mixed spices and minced savoury herbs.

  3. Lard the inside of the boned leg.

  4. Alternatively, fill the cavity with highly seasoned forcemeat.

  5. Sew up the meat and place it in a braising pan with bacon slices underneath and on top.

Braise

  1. Add onions, carrots, bay leaves, savoury herbs, bones, and gravy.

  2. Stew the meat gently for 4 to 5 hours.

  3. Alternatively, place the braised leg in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

Glaze and serve

  1. After cooking, strain the gravy.

  2. Reduce the strained gravy to a glaze.

  3. Brush the glaze over the meat.

  4. Serve with boiled white beans or a mild ragout of garlic or eschalots underneath.

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. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Mutton + carrottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,878 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 body of the dish and is cooked slowly until tender.
Bacon
Lards the meat and bastes it with fat, adding moisture and savoury flavour during braising.
Onions
Break down during braising to add sweetness and body to the gravy.
Carrots
Release sugars during slow cooking, adding sweetness and depth to the braising liquid.
Gravy
Provides the braising liquid, which keeps the meat moist and is later reduced to a glaze.

The step that matters

Stew the meat gently for 4 to 5 hours. Low, gentle heat lets the tough connective tissue in the mutton break down into gelatin, making the meat tender. Boiling hard toughens the muscle fibres and dries the surface.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot. 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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