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Sauce

Spring Lamb and Mint Sauce

A sauce made from mint, sugar, vinegar or cider, served with roasted lamb.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Spring Lamb and Mint Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Rub the saddle of lamb with coarse sea salt and butter.

  2. Roast the lamb, basting frequently with the gravy, for 10 minutes per pound.

Make the mint sauce

  1. For the sauce, finely chop the mint.

  2. Mix the chopped mint with 2 tablespoons of sugar.

  3. Heat 6 tablespoons of white wine vinegar or cider and pour it slowly over the mint mixture.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Lamb + minttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together772 recipes

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

  3. Mint + white winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together157 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Lamb + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Saddle of lamb
Is the main meat, cooked by roasting until done.
Mint
Provides the fresh, aromatic flavour that defines the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.
White wine vinegar or cider
Adds acidity that gives the sauce its tang and bite.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot vinegar over the mint and sugar. Pouring the vinegar slowly lets the hot liquid dissolve the sugar and draw flavour out of the chopped mint. Pouring it too fast can splash or leave sugar undissolved, so the sauce tastes uneven.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, sugar, white wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, sugar, white wine. 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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