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To Roast a Leg of Mutton

A method for roasting a leg of mutton with salt, pepper, flour, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

To Roast a Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Hang the leg of mutton in a cool, airy place for several days, removing the kernel and drying the flap.

  2. Dredge the mutton with pepper to keep flies away if it's warm.

  3. Wipe the mutton dry if washed, then flour it before roasting.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the mutton at least 1 foot from the fire for 4 hours, moving it closer for the last 20-30 minutes for color.

  2. Baste constantly with its own fat to ensure a good roast.

  3. Sprinkle lightly with coarse sea salt and ladle a spoonful or two of boiling water over it before serving.

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
Forms the main body of the roast, with its own fat keeping the meat moist as it cooks.
Flour
Coats the surface so it browns and forms a crisp, colored crust during roasting.
Pepper
Dredged onto the meat to add flavor and help keep flies away while it hangs.

The step that matters

Basting constantly with its own fat. Basting spreads melted fat over the surface, keeping the meat moist and helping the crust brown evenly over a long roast.

“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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