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Roast Spring Lamb

Roast Spring Lamb is a lamb roast seasoned with flour, salt, pepper, served with mint sauce, peas or asparagus, and new potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Roast Spring Lamb

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Season the lamb with flour, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

Roast

  1. Roast the lamb for 15 minutes.

  2. Add 1 cup of hot water and baste frequently.

  3. Cook for about 20 minutes per pound.

Serve

  1. Serve with mint sauce and green peas or asparagus and new 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. Mint + peastop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Peas + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Lamb + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pepper + minttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Spring lamb
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is roasted and served.
Flour
Dusting the lamb helps the surface brown and gives the juices a little body.
Hot water
Added to the pan to create steam and moisture, keeping the lamb from drying as it roasts.

The step that matters

Cook for about 20 minutes per pound. Roasting time depends on weight, and cooking too long dries out lean meat. Checking doneness early and basting with pan juices helps keep the lamb moist and juicy.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, flour, pepper, sauce, peas, potato. 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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