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Lamb, Shoulder Of, with Truffles

A braised lamb shoulder seasoned with salt, pepper, nutmeg, truffles, and herbs, simmered in stock until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Lamb, Shoulder Of, with Truffles

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Sprinkle each shoulder of lamb with salt, pepper, grated nutmeg, and sliced truffles.

  2. Press the shoulders together and tie securely with string.

  3. Place bacon slices at the bottom of a saucepan, then add the lamb on top, followed by more bacon slices.

Braise

  1. Add parsley, thyme, carrots, onions, salt, peppercorns, and stock.

  2. Cover the pan and simmer gently for 3 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the meat, discard the string, and place the joints on a hot dish.

  2. Boil the gravy until it thickens to a sauce consistency, then strain it over the lamb.

  3. Garnish with lemon slices and serve hot.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb shoulders
Provide the meat that becomes tender and juicy during long, gentle simmering.
Truffles
Add a strong earthy aroma that perfumes the meat as it cooks.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that bastes the lamb and enriches the gravy.
Stock
Provides the cooking liquid and, once reduced, the body of the gravy.
Carrots and onions
Release sweetness and savoury depth into the stock as they simmer.

The step that matters

Simmering gently for 3 hours. A gentle simmer breaks down the connective tissue in lamb shoulder slowly, making it tender. A hard boil toughens the meat and can make the liquid cloudy, so keep the pan at a bare simmer with the lid on.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, pepper, nutmeg, truffle, parsley, thyme, carrot):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, nutmeg, truffle, parsley, thyme, 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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