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Roast Mutton

Roast mutton is a whole hind quarter cooked in a strong oven, basted with water and butter, served with currant jelly.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Trim off inedible parts of the mutton and wash it well.

  2. Dry the mutton with a clean cloth.

Roast

  1. Place the mutton in a roasting pan and add a little water for basting.

  2. Roast for about 12 minutes per pound in a strong oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Do not salt at first; add salt after it begins to roast well.

  4. Baste often.

  5. Cover with white paper if it browns too quickly.

  6. About 15 minutes before done, lightly dredge with flour.

  7. Baste with butter.

Finish and serve

  1. Skim the gravy.

  2. Thicken slightly with brown flour.

  3. Serve with 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. 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

Mutton (in the method)
Provides the meat that is roasted and carved, so its cooking time sets the whole method.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown and take on flavour during basting.
Flour
Dusted on near the end, it helps form a light browned crust on the meat.
Currant jelly
Its tartness cuts the richness of the roasted mutton and adds a sweet-sharp contrast.

The step that matters

Salt after the meat starts to roast. Salting at the start can draw out moisture before the surface has set, so the timing of salt is deliberately delayed until roasting is well under way.

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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