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Rolled Mutton

Rolled mutton is a seasoned minced mutton mixture stuffed into a shoulder skin and baked, served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Rolled Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Bone the shoulder of mutton, keeping the upper skin intact.

  2. Remove all the meat and mince it finely.

  3. Add black pepper, coarse sea salt, parsley, lemon-thyme, green onions, lemon peel, and nutmeg to the minced meat.

  4. Mix well with the beaten egg.

Roll

  1. Stuff the mixture back into the skin and roll it up tightly.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 25 hours.

  2. Make gravy from the bones and trimmings, seasoning with pepper, salt, 1 onion, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 tablespoon shallot vinegar, and ⅓ cup port wine.

  3. Pour the gravy over the meat and garnish with forcemeat balls.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Forms the bulk of the roll, supplying rich meat flavour and fat that keeps it moist.
Egg
Binds the minced meat so the filling holds together when rolled and baked.
Soy sauce (in the method)
Adds savoury depth and colour to the gravy.
Port wine (in the method)
Adds sweetness and body to the gravy.

The step that matters

Roll the meat tightly. A tight roll keeps the filling compact so it slices neatly and cooks evenly. A loose roll can open up or dry out during the long bake, because the filling is held together only by the egg and the meat's own fat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, parsley, lemon, thyme, nutmeg, egg. 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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