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Crown of Lamb

A roast lamb crown made from two loins, shaped into a semicircle, roasted with butter, and filled with peas, chestnut puree, or mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and peas work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 650 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Crown of Lamb

Ingredients

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

  1. Select parts from two loins containing ribs and scrape the flesh from the bone between the ribs.

  2. Shape each piece into a semicircle with the ribs on the outside and sew the pieces together to form a crown.

  3. Trim the ends of the bones evenly and wrap each bone in a thin strip of fat scraps to prevent burning.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours or until tender, covering the bones with buttered paper.

  2. Remove the fat from the bones before serving and fill the center with peas, puree of chestnut, or mashed 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 + peastop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb loins with ribs
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow roasting and forms the crown shape.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and the buttered paper helps shield the exposed bones from scorching.
Peas, chestnut puree, or mashed potatoes
Fill the centre of the crown, adding moisture and contrasting texture and flavour to the meat.

The step that matters

Wrapping the rib bones in fat. Exposed bone ends scorch long before the meat is cooked through in the oven. A wrap of fat and buttered paper shields them from direct heat, so the bones stay clean and the meat cooks evenly.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Beansfits about as well
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter. 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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