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Stuffed Leg of Mutton

A roasted leg of mutton stuffed with bread crumbs, almonds, and herbs, cooked with vegetables and served with a thickened gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stuffed Leg of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Remove the bone from the leg of mutton, tearing as little as possible.

  2. Fill the cavity with a mixture of bread crumbs, butter, minced almonds, pepper, salt, parsley, and onion juice.

  3. Sew or tie up the opening to prevent the stuffing from escaping.

Braise

  1. In a roasting pan, place diced carrot, sliced tomato, minced onion, chopped celery, and parsley.

  2. Lay the stuffed mutton on top, pour boiling water over it, cover tightly, and cook for 2 hours, basting 4 times.

  3. Remove the cover, baste with butter, and sprinkle with pepper, salt, and flour to brown.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Strain the gravy through a colander, thicken with browned flour, and serve in a gravy boat.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

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 meat, which becomes tender through long, moist cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and butter in the stuffing, keeping the filling moist.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown when basted.
Flour
Browns on the surface and thickens the gravy.
Minced almonds
Add a nutty flavour and a bit of texture to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Basting during the 2-hour covered cook. Regular basting keeps the meat moist in the boiling-water braise and carries flavour into the surface. Tightly covering the pan traps steam so the meat cooks gently rather than drying out.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, bread, butter, pepper, parsley, onion, carrot):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, bread, butter, pepper, parsley, onion, carrot. 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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