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Roast Spring Lamb

Roast Spring Lamb is a lamb quarter roasted with flour, salt, pepper, and hot water, served with mint sauce and vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,165 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Roast Spring Lamb

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Season the lamb with flour, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

Roast

  1. Roast the lamb for 15 minutes.

  2. After 15 minutes, add 1 cup of hot water and baste frequently.

  3. Cook for about 20 minutes per pound.

  4. Serve with mint sauce and green peas or asparagus and new potatoes.

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 + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lamb + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Spring lamb
Provides the meat that becomes tender and juicy as it roasts slowly.
Flour
Dusted on the surface, it helps the seasoning cling and aids browning.
Hot water
Added to the pan, it creates steam and moisture that keeps the lamb from drying out.

The step that matters

Basting with the pan liquid. Basting during roasting moistens the surface and carries heat across the meat, helping it stay juicy and brown evenly. Skipping it can leave the outside dry.

“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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