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Roast Shoulder of Lamb

A roasted lamb shoulder seasoned with salt, pepper, flour, and butter, served with a breadcrumb stuffing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Roast Shoulder of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the shoulder of lamb in a roasting pan with more water than usual.

Roast

  1. Roast slowly until nearly done, basting with the gravy.

  2. Five minutes before finishing, baste with melted butter mixed with a little lemon juice.

  3. Dredge the lamb with salt, pepper, and flour, then brown lightly.

Variation

  1. For variation, remove the bone and fill the cavity with a dressing of bread crumbs and butter, seasoned with salt and pepper.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lamb + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Shoulder of lamb
Forms the main cut; slow roasting makes the meat tender and juicy.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown as it roasts.
Flour
Dusted on the surface, it helps the outside brown and form a crisp crust.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich fat of the lamb and butter.
Bread crumbs
In the dressing, they soak up butter and drippings to give a moist, soft stuffing.

The step that matters

Lightly browning after dredging. Flour browns quickly and can scorch before the lamb is cooked through, leaving a bitter taste. Watch closely and keep the browning light.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Plumfits less well

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