Name: Roast Lamb
Ingredients: 1 whole lamb; coarse sea salt; water; mint sauce (for serving)

Why it works: Lamb and mint work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 772 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Roast Lamb

Ingredients

1 whole lamb
coarse sea salt
water
mint sauce (for serving)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Place the lamb in a roasting pan.
Pour water into the pan and sprinkle coarse sea salt over the lamb.

Roast and serve

Roast the lamb until cooked to your preference.
Serve the lamb with its own gravy and mint sauce on the side.

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.

Lamb + minttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together772 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Lamb + saucetop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together925 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).
Mint + saucetop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together568 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb: Is the main protein, cooked by dry roasting so the outside browns while the inside stays juicy.
Coarse sea salt: Seasons the meat and helps build a savory crust on the surface.