Why it works: Mutton and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,087 recipes. Both carry decanoic acid, which smells soapy, waxy. The science ↓
Boiled Leg of Mutton, Caper-sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Hang the leg of mutton for a short time.
Cut around the leg, removing the loin.
Saw off the protruding bone and knuckle.
Boil
Place the leg in a large pot with boiling water.
Add the salt and cover the pot.
Cook for a duration equal to the weight of the leg in quarters of an hour, maintaining a vigorous boil.
Serve
When done, drain the leg, place it on a serving dish, and top with caper sauce.
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.
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Mutton + saucetop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,087 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Leg of mutton
- Is the main cut of meat, cooked whole by boiling until tender.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the meat and water during the boil.
The step that matters
Maintaining a vigorous boil. A vigorous boil keeps the water at a steady high temperature so the meat cooks evenly and through. If the boil drops, cooking slows and the meat can turn out unevenly 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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