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Roast Spring Lamb

Roast Spring Lamb is a whole lamb seasoned with pepper and salt, roasted slowly and basted, served with mint sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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. Wipe the lamb with a damp cloth and place it in a roasting pan.

  2. Dust the lamb with pepper.

  3. Dissolve the salt in the water and pour it into the bottom of the pan.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for the first 15 minutes.

  2. Then, reduce the heat and cook slowly, basting every 15 minutes.

  3. Allow 20 minutes of cooking time per pound.

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

Lamb
The main cut of meat, which becomes tender and browned as it roasts.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and dissolves into the water to season the pan juices.
Water
Creates steam and moisture in the pan, helping keep the lamb from drying out.

The step that matters

Reduce the heat after the first 15 minutes. A hot start browns the surface, but continued high heat dries out the meat. Lowering the heat and basting lets the interior cook gently and stay juicy.

“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.

More roast lamb recipes

Quarter 15Shoulder 15Forequarter 13with Mint Sauce 7Fore Quarter 3Leg 3 See all 71 →

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