Skip to main content
Main

To Bone a Leg of Mutton and Force

A leg of mutton is deboned, stuffed with a mixture of bacon, herbs, and spices, then roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 780 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

To Bone a Leg of Mutton and Force

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Turn the mutton leg skin-side up.

  2. Cut through the skin from the knuckle to the first joint.

  3. Lift the skin from the flesh along the bone until the knife is just above it.

  4. Cut through the flesh down to the bone and work the knife around it until you reach the socket.

  5. Remove the flat bone from the large end of the joint, then clear off the meat at the middle joint.

  6. Loosen the skin carefully to draw out the two bones without dividing them.

Stuff and close

  1. Fill the cavities with force‑meat made from chopped mutton, bacon, parsley, thyme, winter savory, pepper, mace, salt, nutmeg, and lemon rind or eschalots.

  2. Sew the skin neatly together where it was cut open and tie the knuckle tightly to prevent gravy escape.

  3. Replace the flat bone at the large end and use a long needle and twine to draw the edges of the meat together over it.

Roast

  1. Roast the prepared mutton in a cradle spit or hanging jack with the knuckle downwards.

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. Thyme + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Winter savory + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton leg
Forms the main body of the joint, holding the stuffing while it roasts.
Delicate striped bacon
Adds fat to the force-meat, keeping the stuffing moist and rich as it cooks.
Parsley
Adds fresh herbal aroma to the stuffing.
Thyme
Adds aromatic herbal flavour that complements the rich meat.
Winter savory
Adds a peppery, aromatic herb note to the stuffing.
Eschalots
Adds savoury depth and aroma to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Tying and closing the knuckle. Stuffing is packed into open cavities, so the skin and knuckle must be sewn and tied firmly. A loose closure lets juices and fat escape during roasting, which dries the meat and leaves the stuffing exposed.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, parsley, thyme, winter savory, pepper, nutmeg, lemon):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, parsley, thyme, winter savory, pepper, nutmeg, lemon. 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.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipes