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Shoulder of Lamb a LA Financiers

A stuffed lamb shoulder cooked with mushrooms, wine, and a butter‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 623 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Shoulder of Lamb a LA Financiers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Trim the end of the knuckle and bone the shoulder as directed for Canto VII of Lamb.

  2. Stuff the shoulder with a forcemeat made as directed on the same page.

  3. Sew it up in the form of a cushion, lard it, and lay it in a saucepan on a bed of trimmings from the larding pork and some vegetable scraps.

Braise

  1. Cover with broth and simmer for four hours until tender.

Serve

  1. Remove the string, place on a dish, garnish with sauce, add a paper frill to the bone, and serve hot.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir together 1 oz of butter and 1 oz of flour over heat until bubbling.

  2. Add ½ pint of broth from the lamb, the mushrooms and their liquid, the wine, and season with salt, nutmeg, and pepper.

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. Lamb + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together623 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Mushroom + winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,632 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  5. Mushroom + porktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

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 cut that is boned, stuffed, and braised until tender.
Larding pork
Adds fat strips that keep the lean lamb moist during long cooking.
Broth
Provides moisture for braising and the base of the sauce.
Eggs
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together when the shoulder is sliced.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, with flour, forms a roux that thickens it.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for four hours until tender. Long, gentle simmering slowly breaks down the connective tissue in the shoulder. A hard boil would toughen the meat and could break it apart.

“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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