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Stuffed Leg of Mutton

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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. Fill the cavity of the mutton with a mixture of bread crumbs, butter, almonds, pepper, salt, parsley, and onion juice.

  2. Sew or tie up the opening to keep the stuffing inside.

Braise

  1. Place diced carrot, sliced tomato, minced onion, chopped celery, and parsley in a roaster.

  2. Lay the stuffed mutton on top.

  3. Pour boiling water over the mutton.

  4. Cover the roaster.

  5. Cook for 2 hours, basting 4 times.

  6. Remove the cover.

  7. Baste the mutton with butter.

  8. Sprinkle the mutton with pepper, salt, and flour.

  9. Brown the meat.

Finish the gravy and serve

  1. Strain the gravy through a colander.

  2. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  3. Serve the gravy 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

Mutton
Provides the main meat that is cooked slowly and browned.
Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and juices in the stuffing, keeping it moist and soft.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the surface brown when basted.
Flour
Thickens the gravy and adds body as it browns.
Almonds
Add texture and a nutty flavour to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Browning the flour for the gravy. Flour must be browned before it is added so it thickens and flavours the gravy without lumps or raw starchy taste. Stirring it in raw leaves a pasty flavour and weaker colour.

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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