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To Boil a Leg of Lamb

A boiled leg of lamb served with melted butter, parsley, and asparagus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and asparagus match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 566 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

To Boil a Leg of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the lamb

  1. Boil the leg of lamb until cooked through.

  2. Place the lamb in a dish and pour melted butter and chopped parsley over it.

Prepare the sides

  1. Fry the loin and arrange it around the lamb.

  2. Cut asparagus to the size of peas, boil until green, and place around the lamb in spoonfuls.

Garnish

  1. Garnish with crisped parsley.

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 + asparagustop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together566 recipes

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

  2. Lamb + asparagustop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + asparagustop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of lamb
The main protein; cooking it through makes it safe to eat and tender.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and coats the lamb to keep it moist.

The step that matters

Boil the lamb until cooked through. Meat must reach a safe internal temperature, and a large cut takes longer to heat through than it looks. Boiling can also draw flavour into the water, so the cook should check doneness rather than rely on time alone.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, asparagus. 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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