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Shouldeb of Lamb Stuffed

A lamb shoulder stuffed with forcemeat, cooked slowly with onions, celery, herbs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,518 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Shouldeb of Lamb Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Remove the blade bone from the shoulder of lamb and fill the cavity with forcemeat. Sew it up with coarse thread.

  2. Place the lamb in a stewpan with slices of bacon underneath and on top.

Stew

  1. Add the chopped onions, celery, herbs, and stock to the stewpan.

  2. Stew gently for just over 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Reduce the gravy and glaze the meat before serving.

  2. Serve with peas, stewed cucumbers, or sorrel sauce.

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. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Lamb + vealtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together568 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + oniontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,407 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Lamb + celerytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together371 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shoulder of lamb
Provides the main body of meat that becomes tender during slow stewing.
Forcemeat
Fills the cavity, adding moisture and richness as it cooks inside the meat.
Fat bacon
Lies over and under the lamb, adding fat that bastes the meat and flavours the gravy.
Onions
Break down during stewing, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the gravy.
Celery
Softens during stewing, adding aromatic flavour to the gravy.
Stock
Forms the cooking liquid that gently braises the lamb and becomes the gravy.

The step that matters

Stew gently for just over 2 hours. Gentle heat keeps the liquid below a hard boil, so connective tissue in the shoulder breaks down slowly into tender meat without the muscle fibres tightening and drying out.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, veal, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, veal, onion. 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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