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Lamb, Leg Of, Boiled

A boiled leg of lamb served with boiled cauliflower or carrots and caper sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and cauliflower work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 61 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Lamb, Leg Of, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lamb

  1. Place the leg of lamb in a pot and cover it with boiling water.

  2. Boil for a few minutes, then add a little cold water.

  3. Move the pot to the side of the heat and remove any scum that rises.

  4. Simmer gently until the lamb is cooked through.

  5. Add 1 teaspoon of coarse sea salt when the lamb is half cooked.

Serve

  1. Transfer the meat to a hot dish and garnish with boiled cauliflower or carrots.

  2. Serve with caper sauce, pouring some over the lamb and the rest in a tureen.

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 + cauliflowertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Lamb + saucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together925 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  3. Cauliflower + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together463 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of lamb
Is the main cut of meat, cooked gently in water until tender and cooked through.
Caper sauce
Adds a sharp, acidic contrast that cuts through the richness of the cooked lamb.

The step that matters

Removing the scum from the surface. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the water heats. Skimming it off keeps the broth clear and stops the meat from taking on a dull, bitter flavour.

Swap the cauliflower

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, sauce. 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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