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Lamb a LA Polonaise

A roasted lamb shoulder topped with mashed potatoes and a brown sauce, finished with eggs and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lamb a LA Polonaise

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cut the meat from the top and bottom of a cold roast shoulder to preserve its shape.

  3. Place the shoulder in a baking dish and surround it with mashed potatoes.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, fry the chopped onion in butter until light brown.

  2. Add arrowroot, brown sauce, and stock; boil for a few minutes.

  3. Stir in minced meat, season with salt and mushroom catsup, then add beaten egg yolks.

  4. Once the eggs have set, pour the mixture over the shoulder, egg it well, and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven until golden brown, then serve with seasoned gravy.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Lamb + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Potato + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together968 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Potato + arrowroottop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb shoulder
Forms the main body of the roast and provides the meat and flavor.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the minced meat mixture into a cohesive topping.
Arrowroot
Thickens the stock and brown sauce into a glossy gravy.
Butter
Fat that browns the onion, adding richness and aroma to the sauce.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on the topping during baking.

The step that matters

Once the eggs have set, pour the mixture over the shoulder. If the egg mixture is poured before it has set, it stays runny and will not bind the topping. Heat coagulates egg proteins, so the mixture must be firm enough to hold together before it is spooned over the meat.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, potato, onion, butter, sauce, egg, mushroom):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, potato, onion, butter, sauce, egg, mushroom. 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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