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Shoulder of Lamb, Braised

A braised lamb shoulder cooked slowly with vegetables, stock, and butter, finished with a reduced glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Shoulder of Lamb, Braised

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the lamb

  1. Bone the shoulder of lamb.

  2. Season well with salt and pepper.

  3. Roll up the meat tightly and bind securely with string.

  4. Cut lardoons about 2 inches long and insert them into the meat in close rows.

Braise

  1. Slice the vegetables and place them in a large braising pan with 1½ oz. of butter or dripping.

  2. Place the meat on top of the vegetables and cover closely.

  3. Cook gently for about 20 minutes.

  4. Add the herbs, peppercorns, and stock to nearly cover the vegetables.

  5. Cover the meat with greased paper and put on the lid.

  6. Braise in the oven at 300°F (150°C) for about 2 hours.

Make the glaze and serve

  1. Melt the remaining butter or dripping in a stewpan.

  2. Fry the shallots slightly, add the flour, and cook until it acquires a nut-brown color.

  3. Remove the strings.

  4. Brush the meat with reduced stock to glaze.

  5. Serve.

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 + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Shallot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 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
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow braising.
Larding bacon
Adds fat and moisture inside the lean meat as it renders during cooking.
Butter or dripping
Carries fat for browning the vegetables and building flavour in the braise.
Flour
Browns in the fat with the shallots to thicken the sauce and add nutty flavour.
Stock
Forms the braising liquid that keeps the meat moist and builds the sauce.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic flavour to the braising liquid as they soften.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour to nut-brown. Flour cooked in fat must be stirred and watched closely; too little cooking leaves a raw starchy taste, while too much darkens and bitters it before the stock is added.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, flour, shallot, parsley, carrot, turnip):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, flour, shallot, parsley, carrot, turnip. 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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