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Shoulder of Lamb

A boned lamb shoulder stuffed with breadcrumbs, suet, bacon, oysters, parsley, lemon zest, and egg, then roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Shoulder of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400 °F (200 °C).

  2. Fill the cavity of the boned shoulder of lamb with the forcemeat mixture: combine bread crumbs, suet, bacon, oysters, parsley, salt, pepper, lemon zest, and beaten egg. Push the stuffing firmly into the cavity.

  3. Grease the joint with bacon dripping, but do not grease the paper bag.

Roast

  1. Place the lamb in a paper bag and roast for 50 minutes, with the gas fully on for the first 15 minutes.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,322 recipes

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

  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

Shoulder of lamb
Forms the main body of the joint and provides the rich meat that carries the dish.
Fine bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind with the egg to give the stuffing a soft, cohesive texture.
Grated suet
Adds fat that melts during roasting, keeping the stuffing and meat moist and flavourful.
Egg
Binds the stuffing so it holds together when sliced.
Fat streaky bacon
Contributes fat and savoury flavour to the stuffing as it cooks.

The step that matters

Push the stuffing firmly into the cavity. Loose stuffing can shift or leave gaps during roasting, and the egg and crumb binder needs to stay packed so the slices hold together when carved.

“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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