Why it works: Lamb and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,165 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Pressed Lamb
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the lamb
Place the lamb in a pot and cover with water.
Boil until tender, then season with salt and pepper.
Keep cooking until very tender and most juice has evaporated.
Press and set
Remove from heat and chop the meat like hash in a wooden bowl.
Press the chopped meat into a bread pan to remove excess juice.
Place a dish over the meat and weigh it down with a flat iron.
Cool until hardened, then slice thinly.
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.
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Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,165 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Shoulder or leg of lamb
- Provides the meat that becomes tender and then pressed into a firm, sliceable block.
The step that matters
Keep cooking until very tender and most juice has evaporated. Simmering long enough breaks down connective tissue so the meat becomes tender, and reducing the liquid concentrates flavour. Stopping early leaves the meat tough and too wet to hold together when pressed.
“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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