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Boiled Leg Op Lamb

A boiled leg of lamb seasoned with coarse sea salt, served with drawn butter or parsley sauce and seasonal vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Leg Op Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Trim off all loose fat from the leg of lamb.

  2. Cut off the shank.

  3. Wash the leg of lamb, then dry it.

  4. Dredge the lamb with flour.

  5. Tie the lamb in a clean cloth.

Boil and serve

  1. Place the lamb in boiling water to cover.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of coarse sea salt for every quart of water.

  3. Boil for 2 to 3 hours, depending on size.

  4. Serve with drawn butter or parsley sauce and seasonal vegetables.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lamb + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Lamb + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

Flour
Forms a light coating on the lamb that helps the surface brown slightly and hold the cloth.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the cooking water so the lamb is lightly flavoured as it cooks.
Drawn butter or rich parsley sauce
Adds fat and richness to the mild, boiled meat when served.

The step that matters

Boil for 2 to 3 hours, depending on size. Keeping the water at a steady boil while the lamb cooks makes the meat tender through slow heat transfer; a weak simmer or too short a time leaves the centre undercooked and tough.

“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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