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Braised Breast of Lamb

A slow‑cooked lamb breast braised with turnip, onion, tomato, stock, and seasoned with pepper and sea salt.

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. Add pepper and salt.

  4. Pour in the stock.

  5. Cook slowly for 1 hour.

  6. Turn the meat.

  7. Cook for an additional hour on low heat until tender.

Brown and make the gravy

  1. Brown the meat by rubbing it with butter.

  2. Keep the meat warm.

  3. Strain the gravy.

  4. Thicken the gravy with browned flour.

  5. Season the gravy.

  6. Boil the gravy.

  7. Pour the gravy over the meat.

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 main meat, which becomes tender through slow, moist cooking.
Browned flour
Thickens the strained gravy so it coats the meat.
Butter
Adds fat and helps brown the surface of the meat.
Stock
Provides the cooking liquid that braises the meat and forms the base of the gravy.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma to the braising liquid.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the braising liquid and gravy.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for the full two hours. Lamb breast and scrags are tough cuts rich in connective tissue. Slow, moist heat over a long period breaks that tissue down into gelatin, making the meat tender. Rushing the braise with higher heat leaves the meat tough and dry.

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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