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To Boil a Leg of Lamb

A leg of lamb boiled with butter, parsley, sea salt, and asparagus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and peas match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 808 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Boil a Leg of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lamb

  1. Boil the leg of lamb until cooked through.

  2. Place the lamb in a serving dish.

Dress and serve

  1. Melt the butter and mix with the chopped parsley, then pour over the lamb.

  2. Boil the asparagus until green and arrange around the lamb.

  3. Garnish the dish with crisp parsley.

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. Asparagus + peastop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + asparagustop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together566 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + asparagustop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together207 recipes

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

  4. Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,322 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + peastop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melted butter adds richness and a smooth, glossy coating over the lamb.
Asparagus
Adds a fresh, green vegetable flavour and colour around the lamb.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, asparagus, peas):

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Mintfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, asparagus, peas. 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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