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Roast Leg of Lamb

A roasted leg of lamb seasoned with coarse sea salt, served with mint sauce and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Roast Leg of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Roast

  1. Place the leg of lamb a good distance from the fire and baste it well while cooking.

  2. When nearly done, move it closer to the fire to brown the meat.

  3. Sprinkle coarse sea salt over the meat.

  4. Empty the dripping pan and pour in a little boiling water. Strain the water over the meat.

Serve

  1. Serve with mint sauce and vegetables like peas, spinach, or cauliflowers.

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. Mint + peastop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Spinach + cauliflowertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Peas + cauliflowertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Peas + spinachtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together550 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Lamb + spinachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of lamb
Provides the main meat, which browns and becomes tender as it roasts.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the surface of the meat and helps form a savoury crust.
Mint sauce
Adds a sharp, acidic contrast that balances the rich roasted lamb.

The step that matters

Moving the lamb closer to the fire. Moving the meat closer only near the end lets the surface brown through the Maillard reaction without overcooking the interior. Moving it too early can dry out or burn the outside before the centre is done.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, sauce, peas, spinach, cauliflower):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, sauce, peas, spinach, cauliflower. 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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