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Loin of Lamb Stewed in Butter

A joint of lamb is stewed slowly in butter and served with various sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and asparagus work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 207 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Loin of Lamb Stewed in Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the joint and dry it thoroughly.

  2. Skewer down the flap and place it in a thick saucepan with the melted butter (do not boil).

Cook and serve

  1. Simmer slowly over low heat for 2 hours and 15 minutes, turning it when it is slightly more than half done.

  2. Lift it out, skim the gravy, and pour it over the lamb.

  3. Serve with asparagus, cucumber, soubise sauce, brown gravy, mint sauce, and a salad.

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. Lamb + asparagustop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together207 recipes

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

  2. Butter + asparagustop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it cooks slowly in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, cooking the lamb gently in fat rather than boiling it.

The step that matters

Keep the butter from boiling. Simmering gently keeps the lamb moist and prevents the butter from separating or browning and turning bitter. Slow, low heat lets the connective tissue soften without the meat drying out or toughening.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusthe original
  3. Chivefits less well
  4. Onionfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter. 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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