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Selle De Mouton Rotie

A roasted saddle of mutton served hot with lemon, parsley, gravy, and currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Selle De Mouton Rotie

Oven, in the book's wordsA very quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Select a saddle of mutton and hang or bury it until perfect.

  2. Wipe the saddle clean and place it in a roasting pan with ½ cup of boiling water.

Roast

  1. Dredge the top with flour and dot with sweet drippings.

  2. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 9 minutes per pound, basting frequently.

Serve

  1. Garnish with a frill of cut paper, and arrange slices of lemon and parsley around it.

  2. Serve very hot with the pan gravy in a sauceboat and currant jelly on the side.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lemon + curranttop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Mutton + parsleytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,915 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Saddle of mutton
The main cut of meat, which provides the body and savoury flavour of the dish.
Flour
Coats the top surface, helping it brown and form a crisp crust during roasting.
Sweet drippings
Adds fat that carries flavour and helps keep the surface moist and golden.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the richness of the roasted mutton.

The step that matters

Bake in a very hot oven, basting frequently. Mutton is lean and dries out quickly, so basting keeps the surface moist. Cooking by weight-based time and checking doneness helps avoid overcooking the meat.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, lemon, parsley. 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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