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To Boil a Leg of Lamb and Loin Fried

A lamb dish featuring a boiled leg served with fried loin pieces, leeks, spinach, parsley, and a sauce of mutton gravy, Madeira wine, and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Leek and spinach share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

To Boil a Leg of Lamb and Loin Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Cut the leg from the loin.

  2. Boil the leg for 45 minutes.

  3. Cut the loin into pieces.

  4. Beat the pieces with a cleaver.

  5. Fry until golden brown.

  6. Simmer the fried loin pieces in strong gravy.

Make the stuffed leg

  1. Cut off the shank from a hind quarter.

  2. Lift the thick part of the flesh from the bone.

  3. Stuff the cavity with white force-meat.

  4. Place it under the kidney.

  5. Brown it partially.

  6. Place it in a pot with 1 quart of mutton gravy.

  7. Cover.

  8. Simmer gently.

  9. Remove it from the pot.

  10. Skim the fat from the gravy.

  11. Drain.

  12. Add 1 glass of Madeira wine.

  13. Add 1 tablespoon of walnut ketchup.

  14. Add 2 tablespoons of browning sauce.

  15. Add juice of ½ lemon.

  16. Add a little cayenne.

  17. Add ½ pint of oysters.

  18. Thicken the gravy with butter rolled in flour.

Serve

  1. Place the boiled leg on a dish.

  2. Arrange the leeks around it.

  3. Pour the gravy over the leg.

  4. Garnish with spinach and crispy parsley.

  5. Serve with gooseberry sauce on the side.

  6. Pour it hot over the lamb before 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. Leek + spinachtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Spinach + gooseberrytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together18 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Leek + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Spinach + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Lamb + muttontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb leg
Boiling gives the meat a tender, moist texture that holds its shape when served.
Oysters
Their briny, savoury flavour deepens the gravy when added near the end.
Butter
Rolled in flour, it thickens the gravy into a smooth, glossy sauce.
Flour
Combined with butter, it forms a roux-style paste that thickens the gravy.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Browning sauce
Adds colour and a rich, savoury depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Thicken the gravy with butter rolled in flour. Adding the butter and flour mixture gradually to hot gravy, while stirring, prevents lumps. Flour must be cooked into the fat so it thickens smoothly rather than tasting raw.

Swap the gooseberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, leek, spinach, parsley, sauce, mutton, madeira wine):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Gooseberrythe original
  4. Plumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, leek, spinach, parsley, sauce, mutton, madeira wine. 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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