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Gigot Roti a LA Provencale

A roast leg of mutton seasoned with oil, onion, parsley, garlic, sea salt, and pepper, cooked over a quick fire.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Gigot Roti a LA Provencale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Tenderize the leg of mutton by beating it with a rolling pin.

  2. Marinate the mutton in oil with chopped onion and parsley for 1-2 days.

  3. Insert the clove of garlic into the handle of the mutton.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the mutton over a quick fire until nearly done.

  2. Reduce the heat to moderate, baste often, and serve with its own gravy.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Parsley + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of mutton
Forms the main body of the roast; its meat becomes tender and juicy as it cooks.
Oil
Carries the flavour of the marinade and helps keep the surface moist during roasting.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour to the marinade as it soaks into the meat.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, herbal aroma to the marinade.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that infuses the meat from the inserted clove.

The step that matters

Reduce the heat to moderate and baste often. Once the meat is nearly done, high heat would burn the surface before the interior finishes. Moderate heat with regular basting keeps the outside moist and lightly browned while the centre cooks through.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, parsley, garlic, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, parsley, garlic, pepper. 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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