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Lamb

A braised lamb shoulder cooked slowly in stock with shallots, onion, carrot, allspice, mushrooms, and savory herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,982 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and sauté the chopped shallots.

  2. Add the shoulder of lamb and brown it on both sides with the lid tightly closed.

Braise and serve

  1. Pour in the stock and add the savory herbs, onion, carrot, allspice, and mushrooms.

  2. Simmer gently for about 2.5 hours until the meat is thoroughly cooked.

  3. Remove the meat, thicken the gravy, and serve.

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. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,021 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb shoulder
Slow cooking breaks down connective tissue, leaving the meat tender and easy to pull apart.
Stock
Provides the liquid that gently cooks the meat and forms the base of the gravy.
Butter
Carries flavour and helps the shallots soften and brown lightly before the meat is added.
Shallots
Build a sweet, savoury aromatic base for the gravy.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savoury depth to the braising liquid as they cook down.

The step that matters

Browning the lamb with the lid closed. Searing the meat builds deep browned flavour through the Maillard reaction, which then enriches the gravy during the long simmer.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, shallot, lamb, onion, carrot, mushroom):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, shallot, lamb, onion, carrot, mushroom. 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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