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Mint Sauce for Roast Lamb

A simple mint sauce made with mint, sugar, vinegar, egg, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,372 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mint Sauce for Roast Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Place the chopped mint in a bowl.

  2. Heat the vinegar and sugar in a saucepan until boiling.

Thicken and finish

  1. Pour the hot mixture over the beaten egg, whisking constantly until it begins to thicken.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then pour the sauce over the mint.

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 + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Mint + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mint
Provides the fresh, aromatic flavour that defines the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that gives the sauce its tang and balances the sugar.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness that softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Egg
Its proteins set when heated, thickening the sauce as it is whisked in.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot mixture over the egg while whisking. Egg proteins set when heated, so pouring hot liquid in too quickly or without constant whisking can scramble the egg. Constant whisking spreads the heat evenly, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, pepper, egg):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, pepper, egg. 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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