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Hind Quarter of Lamb with Spinach

A hind quarter of lamb cooked with spinach, served hot with fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Hind Quarter of Lamb with Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Boil the hind quarter of lamb until cooked, keeping it as white as possible.

  2. Cut the loin into chops.

  3. Season the chops with pepper and salt.

  4. Fry or broil the chops.

Prepare the spinach

  1. Pick the spinach.

  2. Boil the spinach until nearly done.

  3. Strain the spinach.

  4. Squeeze the spinach dry.

  5. Chop the spinach.

  6. Add a small piece of fresh butter, pepper, salt, and a little cullis or cream to the chopped spinach.

  7. Stew the spinach mixture for five minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the lamb with spinach underneath and the steaks around it, very hot.

  2. Serve the spinach as a dish with fried bread around it.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lamb + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Hind quarter of lamb
Provides the main meat, which is boiled until cooked and then cut into chops.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the spinach.
Cullis or cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the chopped spinach a smoother, softer texture.
Spinach (in the method)
Forms the base dish, softened by boiling and then gently stewed with butter and cream.
Fried bread
Serves as a crisp, golden accompaniment set around the spinach.

The step that matters

Squeeze the spinach dry. Excess water left in boiled spinach dilutes the butter and cream and makes the dish watery, so squeezing it thoroughly before chopping and stewing keeps the texture thick and concentrated.

“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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