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Lamb Piquant

A lamb hind leg seasoned with onions, cloves, cayenne, and a mustard‑bread crumb paste, baked and roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Lamb Piquant

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Wash and trim the hind leg of lamb, scoring it deeply in 7-8 places.

  2. Insert a small onion stuck with a clove into each score.

  3. Add cayenne pepper, coarse sea salt, and a small piece of butter to the lamb.

Make the paste

  1. Mix dry French mustard and fine bread crumbs to a thin paste, adding vinegar and butter alternately until well combined.

  2. Season the paste with salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper to taste, ensuring it is spreadable but not runny.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the lamb in a pan with 1 cup of hot water, cover with another pan, and bake until nearly done.

  2. Remove the lamb from the oven, place it in a dry pan, and cover it well with the paste.

  3. Return the lamb to the oven and roast gently until the paste is golden brown.

  4. Serve with mint sauce.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Hind leg of lamb
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is cooked through and served.
French mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the richness of the lamb.
Fine bread crumbs
Thicken the mustard mixture into a spreadable paste that clings to the meat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the paste brown and the meat stay moist.
Onions
Add mild sweetness and moisture as they soften in the pan.

The step that matters

Covering the lamb with the paste before the final roast. The paste must be spreadable but not runny. A thin, wet paste slides off and can scorch or steam instead of browning, while a thick one may not cook evenly through the layer.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, onion, pepper, butter, mustard, bread, vinegar):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, onion, pepper, butter, mustard, bread, vinegar. 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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