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Shoulder of Lamb, Braised

A braised lamb shoulder cooked with vegetables, stock, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Shoulder of Lamb, Braised

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the lamb

  1. Bone the shoulder of lamb and season well with salt and pepper.

  2. Roll up the meat tightly and bind securely with string.

  3. Cut the larding bacon into 2-inch strips and insert them into the meat in close rows.

Braise

  1. Slice the vegetables and place them in a large braising pan with 2 oz. of butter or dripping.

  2. Place the meat on top of the vegetables, cover closely, and cook gently for about 20 minutes.

  3. Add the herbs, peppercorns, and stock to nearly cover the vegetables.

  4. Cover the meat with greased paper, put on the lid, and braise in the oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 2 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. About 30 minutes before serving, melt the remaining butter or dripping in a stewpan.

  2. Fry the shallots slightly, then add the flour and cook until it turns a nut-brown color.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Shallot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb shoulder
Forms the main body of the dish; slow braising breaks down its connective tissue into tender meat.
Larding bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that moistens the lean meat as it cooks.
Butter or dripping
Carries fat for browning and flavour in the braising pan and the sauce base.
Flour
Browned in the fat, it thickens the braising liquid into a richer sauce.
Stock
Provides the cooking liquid that keeps the meat moist during long braising.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they braise, adding body to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour to nut-brown. Flour cooked in fat gives the sauce colour and a toasted flavour, but if it burns it turns bitter, so it needs steady, attentive heat and constant stirring.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, flour, shallot, parsley, carrot, turnip):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, flour, shallot, parsley, carrot, turnip. 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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