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Leg of Lamb Braised, and Beshemel

A braised leg of lamb served with bechamel sauce, lemon slices, and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and meat work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 469 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Leg of Lamb Braised, and Beshemel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and braise

  1. Bone the leg of lamb and fill it with force meat.

  2. Braise it in a white braise for two hours.

  3. Cover the lamb with sliced lemon and sheets of bacon.

Finish and serve

  1. Once done, place it on a cloth to soak up the fat.

  2. Transfer to a dish and pour bechamel sauce over it.

  3. Garnish with pastry and carrot in between.

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. Lamb + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together469 recipes

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

  2. Lamb + saucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together925 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  3. Lamb + lemontop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Meat + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,167 recipes
  5. Meat + lemontop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,817 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of lamb
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the rich, tender meat for braising.
Force meat
Adds moisture and a seasoned, compact stuffing that keeps the lamb juicy inside.
Sheets of bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that bastes the lamb as it cooks.
Sliced lemon
Adds acidity and bright aroma that cut through the richness of the fat.
Beshemel sauce
Adds a creamy, smooth layer that moistens the meat and balances its savouriness.

The step that matters

Blotting the fat after braising. Braising renders a lot of fat into the cooking liquid and onto the surface of the meat. Blotting the lamb on a cloth removes excess grease before the bechamel is added, so the sauce sits cleanly on the meat instead of floating in oil.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, meat, sauce. 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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