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Foee Quarter of Lamb

A roast of lamb forequarter, which includes the shoulder and ribs, cooked over a fire and served with mint sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Foee Quarter of Lamb

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crack the ribs halfway between the edge of the breast and the spine.

Roast

  1. Place the meat over a quick fire and baste it frequently until warmed through.

  2. Cook the lamb thoroughly, about 2 to 2.5 hours.

Carve and serve

  1. Separate the shoulder from the ribs when carving.

  2. Serve with a cut paper ruffle on the shankbone and a little gravy underneath.

  3. Accompany with mint sauce and salad.

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

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

  2. Lamb + saucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together925 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  3. 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
Provides the meat that is cooked through and carved for serving.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat surface, adding flavor to the outer layer.

The step that matters

Cook the lamb thoroughly. Lamb needs enough time in the heat for the connective tissue and fat to soften and the meat to reach a safe, fully cooked state. Basting during roasting helps keep the surface moist while it warms through.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, sauce. 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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