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Breast of Lamb Braised, and Spinage

A braised lamb breast cooked with bacon, lemon, onions, herbs, and stock, served over spinach and garnished with carrot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Breast of Lamb Braised, and Spinage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the chine bone from the lamb breast and skin it.

  2. Blanch the lamb in cold water until it boils, then transfer to cold water.

Braise

  1. Line a stewpan with sheets of bacon and place the lamb on top.

  2. Peel and slice the lemon, then lay the slices on the lamb to keep it white and tender.

  3. Cover the lamb with bacon, add onions, thyme, parsley, and second stock.

  4. Simmer gently on a slow fire until the bones can be easily removed.

Finish and serve

  1. Glaze the lamb, serve it on a dish with spinach, and garnish with carrot cut into crouton shapes.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb breast
Provides the rich meat that becomes tender during slow simmering.
Sheets of bacon
Adds savoury fat and flavour as it lines the pan and covers the lamb.
Lemon
Its acidity is used here to help keep the lamb pale and tender.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and depth to the braising liquid.
Second stock
Supplies the liquid that gently cooks the lamb and builds the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer gently on a slow fire. Gentle, low heat lets collagen in the lamb breast slowly break down into gelatin, making the meat tender. A hard boil can toughen the meat and break it apart before the bones release easily.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, lemon, thyme, parsley, spinach, carrot):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, lemon, thyme, parsley, spinach, carrot. 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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