Home › The Principles of Cookery › Lamb, Boned, Shoulder Of
Lamb, Boned, Shoulder Of
Take the bone from the lamb and lay the shoulder flat on the table; sprinkle plentifully with chopped mint, parsley, thyme, and pepper; then roll up and tie firmly, bake in a moderate oven for three hours, and serve with brown gravy. Probable cost, 10d. per pound.
A boned, rolled shoulder with a green herb lining — simple enough that the details of oven, seasoning and resting are what decide the result.
- Moderate ovenRead this as 325-350F. Shoulder is collagen-rich, so the long time at moderate heat is the point of the dish, not a mistake; it is not a rare-cooked joint.
- Three hours is right, but checkA boned shoulder of 3-4 lb at 350F will take roughly 2.5-3 hours to reach the yielding, sliceable stage (internal temperature around 175-185F). Below about 160F it will still be tough, since the connective tissue has not broken down.
- BoningAsk the butcher to bone and open out the shoulder for you, or run a boning knife along the blade and arm bones and lift them free. Keep the bones and roast them alongside for the gravy.
- SaltThe original seasons with pepper only. Salt the meat well on both sides — an hour ahead if there is time — or the herb layer will taste flat.
- The herbsFor a shoulder this size, about 3 tablespoons chopped mint, 3 of parsley and 1 of thyme leaves. Thyme is much stronger than the other two and should not be measured by the same handful.
- Rolling and tyingRoll from the thick end and tie at 1-inch intervals with butcher's twine. An even cylinder is what keeps the herbs inside and stops the thin flap from drying to leather.
- Brown gravyMost likely a roux-based gravy: pour off most of the fat, cook a spoonful of flour in what remains, then whisk in brown stock and the pan juices. Skim well — shoulder renders a great deal of fat.
- Resting and yieldRest 20 minutes before cutting the strings, or the roll slumps. A 3-4 lb boned shoulder serves six.
- The price note"10d. per pound" is ten pre-decimal pence, a period price rather than a measurement, and can be ignored.
Boning and rolling a shoulder is a butcher's solution to an awkward joint: the shoulder of lamb has a flat blade bone and an arm bone at odd angles, which makes carving at the table difficult and unequal. Opening it out, seasoning the inside face and tying it into a cylinder turns it into something that carves in neat rounds, and gives the cook a surface to season that a bone-in roast does not have. The herb mixture here is thoroughly English — mint has been paired with lamb in British cookery since at least the seventeenth century, when mint sauce sharpened with vinegar was already in use with the meat, and this recipe simply moves the mint inside the joint. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery, compiled for late Victorian middle-class households, gives a "probable cost" for most entries, often by the pound, a habit that suggests the book was addressed to readers ordering from a butcher on a fixed weekly budget rather than choosing by cut alone.