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Roast Mutton

Roast mutton is a seasoned and butter-basted leg or shoulder of sheep cooked in a roasting pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Roast Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Trim off inedible parts.

  2. Wash the meat well.

  3. Dry with a clean cloth.

  4. Place the meat in a roasting pan.

  5. Add a little water for basting.

Roast

  1. Roast for about 12 minutes per pound in a strong fire.

  2. Do not salt the meat initially.

  3. Add salt after it begins to roast well.

  4. If browning too fast, cover with a sheet of white paper.

  5. Baste often.

  6. Lightly dredge with flour and baste with butter.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Skim the gravy.

  2. Thicken slightly with brown flour.

  3. Serve with currant jelly or other tart sauce.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hind-quarter of sheep (loin or leg) or fore-quarter (shoulder)
The meat itself, which is the main body of the dish and cooks through in the roasting pan.
Butter
Basted over the meat, it adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavour.
Flour
Dredged lightly over the meat, it helps form a browned crust and later thickens the gravy.
Currant jelly or other tart sauce
Served alongside, its acidity balances the richness of the roasted meat.

The step that matters

Add the salt after roasting has begun. Salting at the start can draw moisture out of the meat and slow surface browning, so salt is added once the outside has begun to roast well.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. 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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