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Leg of Lamb, Roasted

A roasted leg of lamb seasoned with salt and pepper, browned in butter and lard, served with a pan gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Leg of Lamb, Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the leg of lamb in cold water and dry it.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, then dredge both sides with flour.

Brown

  1. In a Dutch oven, heat the butter and lard until hot enough to brown.

  2. Brown the leg of lamb on both sides, basting often with a tablespoon of hot water before each basting.

Roast and serve

  1. Cover the oven and cook slowly for one hour.

  2. After removing the lamb, add ½ cup of hot water to the pan, boil for one minute, and stir the gravy well before serving.

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).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lamb + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of lamb
Main meat that cooks slowly under cover until tender.
All-purpose flour
Coats the surface so it browns well and helps thicken the gravy.
Butter
Fat that conducts heat for browning and adds rich flavor.
Lard
Fat that tolerates high heat for browning and adds savory flavor.
Hot water
Adds moisture for basting and loosens browned bits into the gravy.

The step that matters

Browning the lamb in hot fat. The fat must be hot enough before the floured lamb goes in. Hot fat drives the Maillard reaction, which creates the brown color and savory flavor on the surface. A cool pan steams the meat instead, leaving it pale and less flavorful.

“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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