Skip to main content
Main

Boned Leg of Mutton

A boned leg of mutton stuffed with bread crumbs, eggs, butter, onion, sage, pepper, and pickled pork, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Boned Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Have the bone taken out of a nice, fat leg of mutton.

Stuff and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, chopped eggs, butter, chopped onion, sage, black pepper, and pickled pork.

  2. Fill the leg of mutton with the stuffing mixture.

  3. Bake the stuffed leg of mutton, basting often until cooked through.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Sage + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 dish and provides the rich meat that carries the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and butter, giving the stuffing a soft, cohesive body.
Hard boiled eggs
Bind the stuffing and add a firm, slightly rich texture.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture, enriching the stuffing and helping it stay tender.
Onion
Adds aromatic savoury flavour to the stuffing as it cooks.
Pickled pork
Contributes salty, savoury flavour that seasons the stuffing.

The step that matters

Basting the stuffed leg. Mutton is lean and can dry out during a long roast. Frequent basting with its own juices keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, bread, egg, butter, sage, pepper, pork):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, bread, egg, butter, sage, pepper, pork. 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.

More stuffed leg of mutton recipes

Oyster 7 See all 47 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes