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Saddle of Mutton

A roasted mutton saddle served with gravy, dripping, and red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Saddle of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Remove the skin from the saddle of mutton.

  2. Cover the fat with a sheet of well-greased paper.

Roast and finish

  1. Roast in a 400 °F (200 °C) oven until nicely browned.

  2. Just before finishing, remove the paper, sprinkle with coarse sea salt, dredge with flour, and drop warm butter over it.

Serve

  1. Serve with good gravy or the contents of the dripping pan, removing the fat and adding a little warm water.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + red curranttop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together495 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Flour + red curranttop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together394 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mutton + red curranttop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together82 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Mutton saddle
Forms the main meat, which cooks through and browns in the oven.
Flour
Dredged over the surface, it helps form a crisp, browned crust.
Warm butter
Adds fat and flavour to the surface and promotes browning and a glossy finish.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich, fatty mutton.

The step that matters

Roast until nicely browned. Browning depends on surface heat and dry exterior; the paper protects the fat from scorching too early, so it must be removed in time for the crust to brown and crisp.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, 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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