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Leg of Mutton Boned and Forced

A leg of mutton stuffed with a seasoned forcemeat mixture and roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and winter savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 780 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Leg of Mutton Boned and Forced

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the leg

  1. Turn the mutton leg upside down. Cut through the skin from the knuckle to the first joint.

  2. Raise the skin from the flesh along the bone, cutting down to the bone.

  3. Work the knife around the bone until you reach the socket. Remove the flat bone from the large end.

  4. Loosen the skin around the middle joint carefully, then draw out the two bones without dividing them.

Stuff and tie

  1. Fill the cavities with the forcemeat, adding a high seasoning of eschalot, garlic, or onion.

  2. Mix the chopped mutton, bacon, parsley, thyme, winter savory, pepper, mace, salt, nutmeg, and lemon rind or eschalots.

  3. Sew the skin neatly where it was cut and tie the knuckle tightly to prevent gravy escape.

  4. Replace the flat bone at the large end. Use a long needle and twine to draw the meat edges together.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the mutton on a spit or hanging jack with the knuckle downwards, starting far from the fire.

  2. Baste constantly and roast for nearly three hours.

  3. Remove the twine before serving with rich brown 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. Thyme + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together780 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Winter savory + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Parsley + winter savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together863 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton leg
Main meat; long slow roasting softens its connective tissue into tender meat.
Bacon
Adds fat that melts into the stuffing and bastes the lean meat as it roasts.
Inside of mutton
Chopped and mixed with seasonings, it forms a moist, well-flavoured stuffing.
Parsley, thyme and winter savory
Add fresh herbal aroma that lifts the rich, fatty meat.
Lemon rind
Adds bright citrus aroma that cuts through the richness of the mutton.

The step that matters

Baste constantly and roast for nearly three hours. Lean meat dries out over a long fire. Frequent basting keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly as the fat renders.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, garlic, parsley, thyme, winter savory, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, garlic, parsley, thyme, winter savory, pepper, nutmeg. 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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