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Haunch of Mutton

A roasted mutton haunch seasoned with port wine and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Port wine and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,499 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Haunch of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and roast

  1. Choose a good, fat, stale hind quarter of mutton and cut it like venison.

  2. Spit the mutton and roast it quickly for 2.5 hours.

  3. Half an hour before serving, remove the paper and baste the mutton with port wine.

Finish and serve

  1. Froth the mutton with butter and color it like venison.

  2. Serve with a similar sauce in a boat.

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. Port wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + port winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together344 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton hind quarter
Forms the main body of the roast; its fat keeps the meat moist during long cooking.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and color to the surface when basted onto the roast.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown and take on color.

The step that matters

Roasting quickly for 2.5 hours. Roasting a large, lean-to-fatty cut too fast or too long can dry the outside before the centre is cooked. Keeping the heat steady and basting helps the meat stay moist and evenly done.

“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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