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Pressed Lamb

A lamb dish where the meat is boiled, chopped, pressed to remove juice, and served sliced with broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,165 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Pressed Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lamb

  1. In the morning, place the lamb in a pot and cover it with water.

  2. Boil until tender, then season with salt and pepper.

  3. Keep cooking until very tender and most of the juice has evaporated.

Press and chill

  1. Remove the meat from the pot and place it in a wooden chopping bowl.

  2. Chop the meat into small pieces like hash and place it in a bread pan.

  3. Press out all the juice and refrigerate to harden.

Serve

  1. To serve, cut into thin slices and enjoy with broth made from the leftover juices, adding vegetables and spices.

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 + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

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

  2. Lamb + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together469 recipes

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

  3. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Forms the main body of the dish; cooking it long until tender breaks down connective tissue for a soft texture.
Black pepper
Adds a sharp, aromatic bite to the seasoned meat.

The step that matters

Keep cooking until very tender and most of the juice has evaporated. Long, slow cooking breaks down collagen in the tough cut so the meat becomes soft enough to press. Stopping early leaves the meat firm and too much liquid, so it will not set into a firm pressed block when chilled.

“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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