Skip to main content
Main

Shoulder of Lamb En Epigramme

Roasted lamb shoulder with the blade bone removed, cut into strips, stewed with herbs, mushrooms and cullis, and served with the broiled fan of skin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme 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 ↓

Shoulder of Lamb En Epigramme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Roast the shoulder of lamb until three-quarters done.

  2. Let the shoulder cool.

  3. Remove the blade bone, leaving the skin intact in the shape of a fan.

  4. Cut the meat into strips.

Make the stew

  1. Mix the meat with parsley, thyme, shallots, mushrooms, cullis, and lemon pickle.

  2. Stew the mixture gently for 15 minutes.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the fan of the shoulder and the blade bone.

  2. Serve the broiled fan and blade bone over the stew.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb shoulder
Provides the main meat, which is cut into strips and bound into the stew.
Shallots
Add aromatic sweetness and savoury depth to the stewed mixture.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy savour to the stewed filling.
Cullis
Provides the sauce base that moistens and binds the meat strips.
Lemon pickle
Adds acidity and bright sharpness that balances the rich meat.

The step that matters

Broil the fan of the shoulder and the blade bone. Broiling browns the exposed skin and surface of the meat through direct high heat, creating colour and flavour. Watch closely, because the thin skin can scorch before the meat beneath is heated through.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, parsley, thyme, shallot, mushroom, sauce):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, parsley, thyme, shallot, mushroom, 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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesMushroom SoupMushroom Soup60 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes