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Lamb, Neck Of, Boiled

Boiled lamb neck served with parsley sauce, turnips, and carrots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Lamb, Neck Of, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lamb

  1. Plunge the neck of lamb into boiling water to barely cover it.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes, then add cold water.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer gently for 1 hour, skimming off any scum.

Serve

  1. Place the lamb on a hot dish and pour parsley sauce over it.

  2. Serve immediately with turnips and carrots.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Lamb + carrottop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together724 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of lamb
Tough connective tissue slowly breaks down during gentle simmering, making the meat tender and succulent.
Parsley sauce
Its thickened base adds moisture and richness to the meat and plate.
Turnips
Their mild sweetness and soft texture complement the rich lamb.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 1 hour. A gentle simmer lets the connective tissue in the neck soften slowly. A hard, rolling boil toughens the meat and clouds the liquid, so keep the heat low and skim off any scum.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Parsnipfits about as well
  2. Turnipthe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, parsley, sauce, carrot. 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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