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Leg of Mutton a LA Venison

A pickled mutton leg stewed in vinegar and spices, 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 of Mutton a LA Venison

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and marinate

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

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

  3. Pour vinegar over the mutton, cover tightly, and refrigerate for 4-5 days, turning and basting daily.

Stew and serve

  1. In a kettle, bring 4 cups of water to a boil and place an inverted shallow pan over it.

  2. Lay the mutton on the pan, cover the kettle tightly, and stew for 4 hours without letting the water touch the meat.

  3. Add 1 cup of hot water to the remaining pickle and baste the mutton with it.

  4. When done, thicken the liquid with flour and strain through a fine sieve to serve with the meat.

  5. Serve 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

Mutton leg
Provides the main meat that becomes tender during long, gentle stewing.
Vinegar
Acidity in the pickle that tenderizes the meat during the multi-day marinade.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a light sauce to serve with the meat.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp vinegar and savory meat.

The step that matters

Keeping the mutton above the water while stewing. Steaming the meat over the water, rather than letting it touch the liquid, keeps the meat from becoming waterlogged and lets it cook gently in the trapped steam. Covering the kettle tightly holds that steam in so the meat cooks evenly over the four hours.

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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