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Shoulder of Lamb

A lamb shoulder stew with bacon, onions, celery, savory herbs, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Shoulder of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Remove the blade bone from the shoulder of lamb.

  2. Fill the cavity with forcemeat and sew it up with coarse thread.

Stew

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

  2. Add onions, celery, savory herbs, and stock.

  3. Stew gently for just over 2 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Reduce the gravy and glaze the meat 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. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shoulder of lamb
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender through long, gentle stewing.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavour that bastes the lamb as it cooks.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aromatic depth to the stewing liquid and gravy.
Stock
Provides the cooking liquid that becomes the gravy, adding moisture and body.
Savory herbs
Add a peppery, aromatic flavour that infuses the stew.

The step that matters

Stew gently for just over 2 hours. Gentle, low heat lets collagen in the shoulder slowly break down into gelatin, making the meat tender and moist. Boiling vigorously toughens the muscle fibres and can leave the meat dry and stringy.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, 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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