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Roast Leg of Mutton

Roast leg of mutton seasoned with salt, pepper, and flour, baked with water to create a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Roast Leg of Mutton

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the meat

  1. Wipe the meat with a cloth dampened with cold water.

  2. Dredge the meat with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and flour.

  3. Place the meat on a rack in a baking pan or steamer.

Roast

  1. Cover the bottom of the pan with flour and place in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Once the flour in the pan is brown, pour in enough hot water to cover the bottom.

  3. Baste the meat often and cook for 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. When done, pour off the fat from the gravy.

  2. Add 1 cup of boiling water to the remaining liquid in the pan.

  3. Thicken the gravy with a paste made from 1 tablespoon of flour and a little cold water.

  4. Stir well and boil for 2-3 minutes, then season with salt and pepper, strain, and serve.

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 + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mutton + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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 roasted meat, which becomes tender and juicy as it cooks slowly.
Flour
Browns in the pan to flavour the drippings and later thickens the gravy.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat surface and helps draw out flavour as it roasts.

The step that matters

Once the flour in the pan is brown, pour in enough hot water to cover the bottom.. Flour browns through the Maillard reaction, giving colour and roasted flavour to the drippings. Adding water too early stops browning, while waiting too long can scorch the flour and make the gravy bitter.

“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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