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Stewed Leg of Lamb with White Sauce

A slow‑cooked leg of lamb simmered with thyme, parsley, carrots, and white sauce, served with a boiled tongue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Stewed Leg of Lamb with White Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the leg of lamb in a pot nearly its size.

  2. Cover with cold water and bring to a slow boil.

  3. Skim off any scum that rises to the surface.

Stew and serve

  1. Once skimmed, add thyme, parsley, and carrots.

  2. Simmer gently for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  3. Serve the lamb covered with white sauce and a boiled tongue on the side.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  5. Lamb + vealtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of lamb
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle simmering.
Bechamel sauce
Forms a creamy white coating that adds richness and a mild, smooth texture.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and aroma to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Skim off the scum after the slow boil. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise as the liquid heats. Removing it keeps the broth clearer and cleaner in flavor. Skimming before adding the herbs and vegetables keeps the stock from turning cloudy or bitter.

Swap the thyme

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, veal, parsley, carrot, sauce):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Cuminfits about as well
  4. Thymethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, veal, parsley, carrot, sauce. 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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