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Soiled Leg of Lamb

A lamb leg is seasoned, boiled with herbs, and served with parsley and lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Soiled Leg of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dust the leg of lamb with coarse sea salt.

  2. Place it in a bowl and cover with water, adding vinegar or lemon juice to acidify.

  3. Let it steep for 1 hour, then dry it.

  4. Dredge the lamb with flour and wrap it in a linen cloth.

Cook and serve

  1. Put it in a saucepan with sweet herbs and enough water to cover.

  2. Boil for 1.5 hours, adjusting time based on size.

  3. Remove the cloth, place the lamb on a hot dish, and garnish with parsley and lemon slices.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

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

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of lamb
Is the main cut that is cooked whole and served as the centerpiece of the dish.
Flour
Dredged onto the surface of the lamb to help form a coating around the meat.
Vinegar or lemon juice
Adds acidity to the soaking water, which can loosen the surface of the meat.

The step that matters

Boil for 1.5 hours, adjusting time based on size. The time depends on the size of the lamb, and a leg that is undercooked or overcooked will be unevenly done. Checking the thickest part helps the meat reach a tender, fully cooked texture.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, vinegar, flour, parsley):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, vinegar, flour, parsley. 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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