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Quartier D'agneau Roti Sans Être Panée

A front quarter of lamb roasted with bacon, breadcrumbs, salt, parsley, and butter paper, finished with a hot fire and citrus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,322 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Quartier D'agneau Roti Sans Être Panée

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Take a front quarter of lamb, as it is more delicate than the back quarter.

  2. Insert bacon strips into the skin side and sprinkle breadcrumbs on the other side.

Roast

  1. Cover with butter paper and roast in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).

  2. When almost cooked, remove from the oven, take off the paper, and add more breadcrumbs to the unpierced side.

Finish and serve

  1. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and finely chopped parsley.

  2. Expose to a hot fire to brown, then serve with its juices and a drizzle of verjuice, vinegar, or lemon juice.

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. Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,322 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Lamb + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Lamb front quarter
Provides the main meat; the front quarter is described as more delicate than the back quarter.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the surface as they toast in the oven.
Bacon strips
Add fat that bastes the lean lamb and adds savory flavor as it renders.

The step that matters

Removing the paper and browning at the end. Adding breadcrumbs after the paper comes off and finishing over a hot fire is what browns and crisps the crust. Leaving the paper on or skipping the hot finish leaves the surface pale and soft, while too much heat too early can scorch the crumbs before the meat is cooked through.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits less well
  4. Pepperfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter. 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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