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Brochette of Spring Lamb

A lamb steak skewer marinated with herbs, lemon, and butter, coated in breadcrumbs and broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Brochette of Spring Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Marinate the lamb steaks in a mixture of shallots, chives, mint, garlic, lemon juice, nutmeg, melted butter, salt, and pepper for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the steaks from the marinade and roll them in fresh grated bread crumbs.

Skewer and cook

  1. Thread the breaded steaks onto skewers.

  2. Broil the skewers until the lamb is cooked through.

  3. Serve with Colbert sauce poured around.

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. Shallot + chivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Chive + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,149 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Mint + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb leg steaks
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and juicy when cooked through.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the lamb and herbs.
Melted butter
Carries fat and flavour through the marinade and helps the coating brown.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the steaks.

The step that matters

Broil until the lamb is cooked through. Thin, breaded steak pieces can dry out or burn at the surface before the centre is done. Watching the skewers closely and turning them helps the heat reach the middle evenly.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, shallot, chive, clove, garlic, lemon, nutmeg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, shallot, chive, clove, garlic, lemon, nutmeg. 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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