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To Make a Handsome Dish of a Loin of Lamb

A rolled loin of lamb stuffed with kidney, parsley, breadcrumbs, and eggs, then stewed and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

To Make a Handsome Dish of a Loin of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Cut off the leg and flap from the loin of lamb, then cut the loin into steaks and flatten them.

  2. Mince the flap, any cold roast lamb, kidney, parsley, and hard-boiled egg. Mix with breadcrumbs, raw egg, pepper, salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Spread the mixture inside the flap and lay kidney slices on top.

  4. Roll it up tightly and tie with string.

Stew and shape

  1. Wrap in a cloth and stew for 30 minutes.

  2. Remove from the cloth and let cool slightly.

  3. Slice into four pieces.

Coat and fry

  1. Glaze with yolk of egg.

  2. Dredge with breadcrumbs, pepper, and salt.

  3. Fry until golden brown and cooked through.

  4. Serve with lemon garnish.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the filling, then form a crisp golden crust when fried.
Raw egg
Binds the minced filling so it holds together when rolled and sliced.
Butter
Conducts heat for frying and promotes browning on the outside of the roll.
Hard-boiled egg
Adds body and a firm, sliceable texture to the minced filling.

The step that matters

Rolling and tying the roll tightly. A loose roll can open during stewing and frying, letting the filling spill out. Tight rolling and secure tying keep the layers together so the slices hold their shape.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Dillfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, egg, parsley, pepper, butter, lemon. 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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