Skip to main content
Main

Lambs, Shoulder Of, Braised

A braised lamb shoulder cooked with bacon, vegetables, stock, and a butter‑flour roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lambs, Shoulder Of, Braised

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the lamb

  1. Bone the shoulder of lamb and season it well with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  2. Roll the meat tightly and bind it securely with string.

  3. Cut the bacon into 2-inch long strips and insert the bacon strips into the meat in close rows.

Braise

  1. In a large braising pan, melt 7 oz. of butter.

  2. Add the sliced vegetables to the pan and place the meat on top of the vegetables.

  3. Cover the meat closely and cook gently for 20 minutes.

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

  5. Cover the meat with a buttered paper and put on the lid.

  6. Braise in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 2 hours.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Half an hour before serving, melt the remaining butter in a saucepan.

  2. Fry the shallots slightly, then add the flour and cook until it turns a nut‑brown color.

  3. When the meat is ready, remove the strings and brush the meat with reduced stock to glaze.

  4. Crisp the bacon in a 350°F (175°C) oven for a few minutes.

  5. Strain the stock and increase it to ½ pint.

  6. Pour the stock over the brown roux and stir until it boils.

  7. Add the parsley, season to taste, and simmer for 2-3 minutes before serving in a sauceboat.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  5. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 dish, becoming tender through slow, gentle braising.
Bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that bastes the lean meat as it cooks.
Butter
Carries fat for richness and helps the flour brown into a nutty roux.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a sauce when cooked in butter to a nut-brown roux.
Stock
Provides the liquid for braising and the base of the sauce.
Onions
Break down during braising, sweetening the stock and body of the sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the brown roux. The flour must be cooked in butter until nut-brown; cooking too briefly leaves a raw floury taste, while cooking too long can scorch and turn bitter, spoiling the sauce.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, butter, flour, shallot, 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.

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesMeat CroquettesMeat Croquettes52 recipesTurnip SoupTurnip Soup43 recipesMeatballsMeatballs37 recipes