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Canton of Lamb

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Canton of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

  1. Prepare the shoulder by cutting out the shoulder blade and boiling it to clean thoroughly.

  2. Trim the end of the bone to resemble a duck's bill.

  3. Stuff the shoulder with forcemeat, sew it up, and truss it to look like a duck.

  4. Place it in a dripping pan with scraps of vegetables and herbs, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes per pound.

  5. Prepare the garnish by peeling the carrots and turnips, cutting them into small balls, and boiling them in well-salted water until tender. Keep them in cold water to retain color.

  6. Once the Canton is done, place it on a hot dish and keep it warm while making the sauce.

  7. Make the sauce as directed in the previous recipe for Breast of Veal.

  8. When ready to serve, heat the vegetables in the sauce, arrange them around the Canton, and serve with the shoulder blade, which should be scraped and notched to resemble feathers.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Mutton + carrottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,878 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + turniptop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,558 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

Swap the turnip

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, butter, egg):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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