Skip to main content
Main

Breast of Lamb with Bechamel

A lamb breast cooked with herbs, shallots, anchovy essence, lemon, and topped with breadcrumbs, then broiled and served over béchamel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lamb and shallot work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 145 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Remove the underbone from the breast of lamb.

  2. Blanch the lamb and place it in a stewpan with parsley, thyme, shallots, butter, salt, pepper, essence of anchovies, and lemon juice.

  3. Simmer over low heat until nearly done.

  4. Transfer the lamb to a dish and let it cool slightly.

Coat and finish

  1. Coat the lamb with beaten egg and breadcrumbs.

  2. Broil the lamb over a low flame until tender and nicely browned.

  3. Serve with béchamel sauce underneath.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lamb + shallottop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together145 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,036 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,973 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb breast
Provides the meat that becomes tender through slow simmering and is then browned.
Egg
Binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the lamb and sets when heated.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the lamb under the broiler.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavour into the lamb during simmering.
Shallots
Add a mild aromatic sweetness that flavours the simmering liquid.

The step that matters

Broil the coated lamb over a low flame. Breadcrumbs and egg brown quickly and can scorch before the lamb is heated through. Low, even heat lets the coating brown while the meat becomes tender inside.

Flavor stand-ins for the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, parsley, thyme, butter, pepper, lemon, egg):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Asparagusabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, parsley, thyme, butter, pepper, lemon, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.

You might also like

Illustration of Lemon SauceIllustrationLemon Sauce236 recipesIllustration of Tomato SoupIllustrationTomato Soup526 recipesIllustration of Brown BreadIllustrationBrown Bread461 recipesIllustration of Mutton BrothIllustrationMutton Broth292 recipes