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Leg Op Mutton a LA Venison

A pickled and stewed leg of mutton seasoned with spices and served with currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Leg Op Mutton a LA Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Pickle the mutton

  1. Remove rough fat from the mutton and place it in a deep earthen dish.

  2. Rub the mutton thoroughly with salt, celery salt, brown sugar, black pepper, English mustard, allspice, and sweet herbs.

  3. Pour vinegar over the mutton slowly.

  4. Cover tightly and refrigerate for 4 to 5 days, turning and basting daily.

Stew and serve

  1. Bring 1 quart of water to a boil in a kettle.

  2. Place an inverted shallow pan over the boiling water and lay the mutton on it, ensuring the water does not touch the meat.

  3. Cover tightly and stew for 4 hours.

  4. Add a cup of hot water to the remaining pickle and baste the meat with it.

  5. Thicken the cooking liquid with flour and strain through a sieve.

  6. Serve the mutton with currant jelly.

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. Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 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

Leg of mutton
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long, gentle stewing.
Vinegar
Acidity in the pickle that softens the meat fibres and adds tang.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and helps the surface brown.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.

The step that matters

Keeping the water from touching the meat. Steaming the mutton over boiling water, rather than submerging it, cooks it gently with moist heat. Direct contact with the water would make the meat waterlogged and its flavour diluted.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, sugar, pepper, mustard, allspice, vinegar, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sugar, pepper, mustard, allspice, vinegar, flour. 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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