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Lamb Pie

A lamb pie baked with a raised crust, flavored with spices, sugar, lemon, and optionally jelly and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Lamb Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Bone the shoulder of lamb and season it highly with spices.

  2. Sprinkle the lamb with white sugar and roll it tightly.

  3. Roast the lamb for 20 minutes, basting it with butter.

  4. Let the lamb cool, then cut it into slices.

Assemble and bake

  1. Squeeze lemon juice over the slices and pack them in a raised pie crust.

  2. Bake the pie for 1 hour.

  3. When done, pour in melted jelly of your choice.

  4. Optionally, add soaked sultana raisins or currants.

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. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Lemon + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 cooks through and forms the body of the pie.
White sugar
Sweetens the lamb and promotes browning on the surface as it roasts.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture while basting, helping the lamb brown and stay juicy.
Lemon
Its acidity brightens the rich lamb and adds a fresh, sharp note.
Raised pie crust
Holds the filling in a sturdy shell that keeps the meat moist as it bakes.

The step that matters

Let the lamb cool before slicing and packing. Cooling firms the rolled meat so clean slices hold their shape in the crust. Packing hot meat would let juices soften the pastry and make the pie soggy.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, sugar, butter, lemon. 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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