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Leg of Lamb, Larded

A leg of lamb larded with butter and lard, stuffed with pickled onions, baked and served with a tomato ketchup gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Leg of Lamb, Larded

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Wash the lamb in cold water and dry it with a linen cloth.

  2. Make deep incisions in the lamb and insert the pickled onions.

  3. Season the lamb with salt and pepper, then dredge it with flour.

Brown and cook

  1. Heat the butter and lard in a Dutch oven until hot.

  2. Brown the lamb on both sides, adding hot water occasionally to baste.

  3. Cover the Dutch oven to retain steam and cook the lamb slowly for one hour.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. After cooking, add browned flour and hot water to the gravy.

  2. Boil the gravy for five minutes, stirring well, then add tomato ketchup and serve.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Lamb + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together979 recipes

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

  5. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 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

Leg of lamb
Forms the main body of the dish, and its fat and connective tissue provide the meat's flavour and moisture as it cooks.
Flour
Dredging coats the surface so it browns, and it thickens the gravy.
Butter
Fat for browning the lamb, adding richness and a nutty flavour.
Lard
Fat that conducts heat well for browning the lamb, adding savoury richness.
Browned flour
Adds a toasted, deeper colour and flavour to the gravy and helps it thicken.
Tomato ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Brown the lamb on both sides. Browning creates flavourful Maillard compounds and a dark crust on the floured surface. Pale meat tastes flat, and crowding the pot or using too little fat causes steaming instead of browning.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, onion, pepper, flour, butter, ketchup):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, onion, pepper, flour, butter, ketchup. 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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