Skip to main content
Main

Shoulder of Lamb Forced, with Sorrel Sauce

A lamb shoulder stuffed with a mixture of suet, ham, oysters, parsley, breadcrumbs, eggs, and seasonings, served with sorrel sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Shoulder of Lamb Forced, with Sorrel Sauce

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Prepare the forcemeat by mixing beef suet, lean ham, oysters, parsley, breadcrumbs, pepper, and salt.

Stuff and cook

  1. Bind the mixture with eggs and stuff it into the boned shoulder of lamb.

  2. Skewer the lamb tightly to secure the filling.

  3. Stew the lamb in weak broth over low heat until tender.

Serve

  1. Once cooked, place the lamb on a dish and glaze it.

  2. Pour sorrel sauce around the lamb and garnish with notched lemon.

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

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

  2. Lamb + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together896 recipes

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

  3. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the forcemeat so the stuffing holds together when sliced.
Beef suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the stuffing moist during cooking.
Lean ham
Adds savoury flavour to the forcemeat filling.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour to the forcemeat.
Breadcrumbs (in the method)
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat body and texture.

The step that matters

Stewing the stuffed lamb in weak broth. Cooking over low heat lets the connective tissue in the shoulder break down slowly, making the meat tender. A rapid boil would toughen the muscle fibres and could dry out the stuffing.

“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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes