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Loin of Mutton Roasted

Roasted loin of mutton seasoned with spices, stuffed, baked, and served in a gravy with optional mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Loin of Mutton Roasted

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the meat

  1. Hang the mutton until tender and bone it.

  2. Season the meat with finely powdered pepper, allspice, mace, nutmeg, and cloves.

  3. Prepare stuffing as for hare, beat the meat, and cover it with the stuffing.

  4. Roll it up tightly and tie it.

Bake and stew

  1. Half bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) and let it cool.

  2. Remove the fat and place the gravy in a stewpan.

  3. Flour the meat and add it to the stewpan.

  4. Stew until almost ready, then add port wine, ketchup, anchovy, and lemon-pickle half an hour before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve in the gravy with jelly sauce.

  2. Add fresh mushrooms for improvement, if desired.

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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Loin of mutton
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender when hung and then slowly cooked.
Flour
Coats the meat so the gravy thickens and clings to the surface.
Port wine
Adds depth and sweetness to the gravy as it finishes cooking.
Anchovy
Adds savoury depth to the gravy, giving a salty, umami note.
Fresh mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the gravy when used.

The step that matters

Half bake and cool before stewing. Partial baking sets the rolled meat's shape and firms its surface so it holds together during the later stew. Cooling before the gravy stage lets the fat be removed cleanly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, allspice, nutmeg, clove, port wine, ketchup):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, allspice, nutmeg, clove, port wine, ketchup. 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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