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Braised Breast of Lamb

A slow‑cooked lamb breast braised with turnip, onion, tomato, stock, and browned flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,585 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Braised Breast of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Braise

  1. Place the breast of lamb or scrags in a broad pot, meat side down.

  2. Scatter the sliced turnip, onion, and tomatoes over the meat.

  3. Season with pepper and salt.

  4. Add the stock.

  5. Cook slowly for 1 hour.

  6. Turn the meat.

  7. Cook for an additional hour on low heat.

Brown and make the gravy

  1. Brown the meat with butter.

  2. Keep the meat warm.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  5. Season the gravy.

  6. Bring the gravy to a boil.

  7. Pour the gravy over the meat before serving.

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. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 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 breast or scrags
Provides the rich meat that becomes tender during slow, moist cooking.
Stock
Supplies the liquid for braising and the base of the gravy.
Browned flour
Thickens the strained gravy so it coats the meat.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the braising liquid.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the braising liquid.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and flavour to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Cook slowly over low heat. Lamb breast is tough connective tissue. Slow, gentle braising at low heat melts collagen into gelatin, making the meat tender. Fast, high heat toughens the meat and dries the liquid.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Okrafits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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