Skip to main content
Main

Braised Leg of Mutton

A slow‑cooked leg of mutton seasoned with bacon, spices, herbs, onions, carrots, and gravy, served with beans or ragout.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 strips of bacon in mixed spice and savoury herbs, and lay them inside the boned portion. Alternatively, fill the cavity with highly seasoned forcemeat.

Braise

  1. Place the meat in a large pot with bacon slices underneath and on top.

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

  3. Stew the meat gently for 4 to 5 hours, keeping embers on top. Alternatively, place the pot in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

Glaze and serve

  1. 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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow braising.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that bastes the meat as it cooks.
Onions
Build savoury sweetness and body into the braising liquid.
Carrots
Add sweetness and aroma to the braising liquid.
Gravy
Forms the braising liquid that keeps the meat moist during long cooking.

The step that matters

Stewing the meat gently. Long, gentle heat lets the connective tissue in the mutton break down slowly; a hard boil would toughen the surface and dry the meat before it becomes tender.

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.

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipes