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To Roast Lamb

A method for roasting a whole lamb, served with mint sauce and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,998 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Roast Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lamb and dry it thoroughly.

  2. Skewer the lamb on a spit and cover the fat with paper.

Roast

  1. Roast it over a clear, brisk fire.

  2. Baste initially with a little salt and water, then with its own drippings.

  3. Remove the paper when nearly done and dredge with flour.

  4. Baste with butter until cooked through and it drops white gravy.

Make the mint sauce and serve

  1. Prepare mint sauce by mincing mint leaves and mixing with vinegar and sugar until just moistened.

  2. Serve the mint sauce and gravy in separate boats, garnished with sliced lemon.

  3. Carve the lamb by separating the shoulder from the breast or the leg from the ribs, sprinkling with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

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 + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Lamb
Forms the meat that is roasted, carved and served as the main dish.
Flour
Dredged over the lamb near the end to help form a browned crust and gravy.
Butter
Used to baste the lamb, adding richness and helping it brown.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the mint sauce, balancing its sweetness and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the mint sauce to offset the sharpness of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Remove the paper when nearly done and dredge with flour. Removing the paper too early leaves the fat unprotected and can dry the meat, while adding flour too early may burn before the lamb finishes cooking. Timing this step near the end lets the surface brown and form a gravy-ready crust.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, flour, butter, vinegar, sugar, lemon. 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.

More roast lamb recipes

Quarter 15Shoulder 15Forequarter 13with Mint Sauce 7Fore Quarter 3Leg 3 See all 71 →

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