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To Goosify a Shoulder of Lamb

A roasted shoulder of lamb seasoned with onions, sage, pepper, salt, butter, and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Goosify a Shoulder of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stuff the shoulder bone and shank with onions, sage, pepper, salt, and butter.

  2. Put a little gravy into a roasting dish.

Roast

  1. Roast the lamb before a hot fire, basting it with fresh butter continuously.

  2. If using young lamb, sprinkle a little salt on it for crispiness.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

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

  4. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb shoulder
Provides the meat that becomes tender and juicy during slow roasting.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and basting with it helps the surface brown.
Onions
Stuffed into the shoulder, they add sweetness and aroma as they cook.
Sage
Stuffed into the shoulder, it adds an earthy, aromatic flavour.

The step that matters

Basting the lamb with fresh butter continuously. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and encourages even browning, so the outside does not dry out or scorch before the meat is cooked through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, sage, pepper, butter. 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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