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Boiled Leg of Lamb and Spinach

A boiled leg of lamb served with spinach and seasoned with herbs and aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme 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 ↓

Boiled Leg of Lamb and Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Remove the loin from the hind quarter and cut it into about 12 neat cutlets.

  2. Place the cutlets with clarified butter in a sauté pan and sprinkle them with pepper and salt.

  3. Cover the pan with buttered paper.

Soak and boil the leg

  1. Soak the leg of lamb in cold water for about an hour to make the fat white and delicate.

  2. Place the leg of lamb in an oval kettle and cover it with water.

  3. Add the diced beef suet, bacon fat, butter, parsley, thyme, onion, peppercorns, carrot, turnip, and lemon slices.

  4. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 1.5 hours.

Brown the cutlets and serve

  1. Sauté the cutlets on high heat until browned on one side.

  2. Remove the paper from the pan, turn the cutlets, and drain excess butter from the pan.

  3. Add a light glaze to the cutlets.

  4. Drain the leg of lamb and place it on a serving dish.

  5. Place six spoonfuls of spinach on each side of the leg.

  6. Top each spoonful of spinach with a cutlet, fat side out.

  7. Add another spoonful of spinach on each cutlet, ensuring part of the cutlet is visible.

  8. Garnish the shank with a ruffle.

  9. Place a spoonful of spinach across the joint.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Lamb + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together896 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb hind quarter
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long simmering in liquid.
Beef suet
Adds rich fat to the cooking liquid, contributing moisture and savoury flavour to the meat.
Bacon fat
Adds smoky, savoury fat that enriches the cooking liquid and carries flavour.
Clarified butter
Conducts heat well for browning the cutlets and adds a nutty, rich flavour.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright aroma to the cooking liquid, balancing the rich fat.

The step that matters

Sauté the cutlets on high heat until browned on one side. Cutlets already cooked in liquid are delicate; high heat in fat browns their surface quickly through the Maillard reaction, while overlong cooking dries the meat.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, pepper, beef, parsley, thyme, onion. 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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