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To Force a Quarter of Lamb

A roasted hind quarter of lamb stuffed with force‑meat, served with a gravy of mutton stock, Madeira wine, walnut ketchup, browning, lemon, cayenne, and oysters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Force a Quarter of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Remove the shank from the hind quarter of lamb.

  2. Lift the thick part of the flesh from the bone with a knife.

  3. Stuff the cavity with white force-meat and under the kidney.

  4. Half roast the lamb, then place it in a roasting pan with mutton gravy.

Make the gravy

  1. Cover and let it simmer gently until cooked.

  2. Remove the lamb and skim the fat from the gravy.

  3. Strain the gravy, then add Madeira wine, walnut ketchup, browning, lemon juice, cayenne, and oysters.

  4. Thicken the sauce with butter rolled in flour.

Serve

  1. Pour the hot gravy over the lamb and 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  3. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Walnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,039 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

Lamb
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in the gravy.
White force-meat
Adds a moist, savoury stuffing that keeps the lean meat juicy while it cooks.
Mutton gravy
Provides the cooking liquid and the base flavour for the sauce.
Butter and flour
Form a roux-style paste that thickens the gravy to a smooth, coating consistency.
Madeira wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the gravy.
Oysters
Add a briny, savoury richness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with butter rolled in flour. Flour must be fully cooked and evenly dispersed in the hot gravy; adding it lumpy or without cooking leaves a raw floury taste and uneven thickness.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, meat, mutton, madeira wine, walnut, ketchup, pepper):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Grapefits less well
  4. Red currantfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, meat, mutton, madeira wine, walnut, ketchup, pepper. 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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