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Leg of Lamb, to Boil

A boiled leg of lamb stuffed with suet, herbs, and eggs, served with a wine-anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 896 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Leg of Lamb, to Boil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Divide the leg from the loin of the lamb.

  2. Remove the skin from the leg.

  3. Chop the flesh from one side finely.

  4. Mix the chopped flesh with an equal amount of shredded beef suet and sweet herbs.

  5. Season with nutmeg, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  6. Add 2 beaten eggs.

  7. Stuff the mixture into the leg.

  8. Sew the leg up.

Boil and fry

  1. Boil the stuffed leg in a cloth.

  2. Chop the loin into steaks.

  3. Fry the steaks until browned.

  4. Arrange the fried steaks around the boiled leg.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine white wine, anchovies, nutmeg, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Thicken the sauce with the yolks of 2 eggs.

  3. Pour the sauce over the lamb.

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

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

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

Lamb leg
Forms the main body of the dish and is cooked whole inside the cloth.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the chopped stuffing moist during boiling.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing together and thicken the sauce when yolks are added.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat for a smooth, rich texture.
White wine
Adds acidity to the sauce, balancing the richness of the butter and yolks.
Anchovies
Contribute savory depth to the sauce, melting into it as it heats.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with the yolks of 2 eggs. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated, but if the sauce gets too hot they scramble into lumps. Keep the heat low and stir constantly so the sauce stays smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, beef, pepper, egg, white wine, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, beef, pepper, egg, white wine, 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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