Skip to main content
Main

Braized Breast of Lamb

A braised lamb breast served with peas, ham, parsley, and green onions in a sauce of espagnole and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Braized Breast of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Braise the whole breast of lamb until done.

  2. Remove the small bones and flatten the breast between two dishes. Let it cool.

  3. Cut the breast into small, brown chop-sized pieces.

  4. Warm the pieces in the braising liquid.

Make the pea sauce

  1. Prepare the peas with a little fresh butter. Drain the peas.

  2. Simmer the peas over low heat with the ham, parsley, and green onions.

  3. Once nearly done, remove the ham, parsley, and onions.

  4. Finish the peas with the espagnole sauce and a little sugar.

  5. Mix 1 teaspoon of flour with the peas.

  6. Moisten the mixture with the braising liquid. Reduce the mixture.

  7. Season with salt and pepper.

Assemble

  1. Cover the meat with this mixture.

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 + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Peas + parsleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,885 recipes

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

  4. Peas + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb breast
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long braising and is cut into pieces.
Green peas
Form the main vegetable body of the dish, adding sweetness and a soft texture.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the peas.
Espagnole sauce
Adds body and savoury depth to the peas, thickening the mixture as it reduces.

The step that matters

Reduce the mixture after moistening it. Reducing concentrates the liquid and thickens it through evaporation, so the sauce coats the meat and peas rather than running off. Stop early and it will be thin; reduce too far and it becomes pasty or salty.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, ham, parsley, onion, sauce, sugar):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, ham, parsley, onion, sauce, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes