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Leg of Mutton with Anchovy Sauce

A roasted leg of mutton simmered in stock with anchovy butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Leg of Mutton with Anchovy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Prick the leg of mutton with garlic and lard it with pieces of ham.

  2. Place the mutton in a pot with stock, salt, pepper, garlic, nutmeg, bay leaf, and brandy.

  3. Simmer until done, allowing 15 minutes per pound.

Make the anchovy sauce

  1. Bone the anchovies, pound them, and mix with the butter.

  2. Once the mutton is cooked, strain the cooking liquid into the pot.

  3. Add the anchovy butter to the pot and simmer for 5 minutes.

  4. Return the leg of mutton to the pot to keep warm until 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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 body of the dish and carries most of the flavour as it cooks slowly.
Lean ham or bacon
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the meat as it is larded through the joint.
Stock
Provides moisture for gentle simmering, keeping the mutton tender and building the cooking liquid.
Brandy
Adds aromatic alcohol that carries flavour into the meat and the cooking liquid.
Anchovies
Contribute a deep, salty savouriness that enriches the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat that emulsifies with the anchovies and cooking liquid to give the sauce body.

The step that matters

Simmer until done, allowing 15 minutes per pound. Gentle simmering lets collagen in the mutton break down slowly, so the meat becomes tender without drying out. Overcooking at a hard boil toughens the muscle fibres and makes the meat stringy.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, ham, pepper, clove, nutmeg, brandy, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, ham, pepper, clove, nutmeg, brandy, butter. 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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