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Desserte De Gigot Roti

A shredded leg of lamb simmered in a butter and broth sauce, seasoned with salt, pepper, parsley, and optional mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Desserte De Gigot Roti

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove the meat from the leg of lamb, discarding bones, skin, and burnt parts.

  2. Cut the good meat into very small pieces.

  3. In a saucepan, combine the meat with butter, cover, and heat gently near the oven or on hot coals, stirring often.

Make the sauce

  1. In another saucepan, make a roux.

  2. Gradually add broth, stirring until it boils and thickens to a sauce consistency.

  3. Let the sauce simmer for 15-20 minutes.

  4. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve, pressing with a wooden spoon.

Combine and serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the meat.

  2. Stir off the heat.

  3. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  4. Bring to a boil briefly.

  5. Add a pinch of chopped parsley and a small piece of fresh butter.

  6. Optionally, add prepared mushrooms to the dish just before serving.

  7. Serve.

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

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

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Lamb + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together896 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb (gigot)
Provides the meat that is cut small and gently heated until tender in butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the meat and finishes the sauce with a smooth, glossy texture.
Broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as it boils with the roux.
Roux (in the method)
Thickens the sauce, giving it body and a smooth consistency.

The step that matters

Add the broth gradually to the roux. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the roux smooth; dumping it in at once can trap lumps of flour that stay in the sauce and are hard to remove.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, beef, pepper, mushroom):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Rosemaryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, beef, pepper, mushroom. 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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