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Boiled Leg of Mutton

A large leg of mutton is slowly boiled with salt, served with boiled turnips and caper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and turnip are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,558 recipes. Both carry octanal, which smells fat, soap. The science ↓

Boiled Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the shank of the leg of mutton and wipe it clean.

  2. Place the mutton in a clean saucepan or stewpan and cover with lukewarm water.

Cook

  1. Bring the water to a slow boil, skimming off any foam as necessary.

  2. Simmer the mutton for 2 hours until well done but still juicy.

  3. Blanch the mutton in hot water for 10 minutes (if desired).

  4. Wrap the mutton in a floured cloth for a whiter appearance (if desired).

  5. A few minutes before it's done, add ½ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.

Serve

  1. Serve with boiled turnips and caper sauce on the side.

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. Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,558 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  2. Turnip + saucetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Mutton + saucetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 that becomes tender and juicy during long, gentle simmering.
Boiled turnips
Serve alongside the meat as a side dish.
Caper sauce
Serves alongside the meat to add a sharp, tangy contrast to the rich mutton.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after the slow boil. A rolling boil toughens meat and squeezes out juices. Keeping the water at a gentle simmer lets the connective tissue soften slowly while the meat stays juicy.

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, sauce):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sauce. 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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