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Spring Lamb, Mint Sauce

A roasted saddle of lamb served with a 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: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Spring Lamb, Mint Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and roast the lamb

  1. Rub the saddle of lamb with coarse sea salt and butter.

  2. Roast the lamb, basting frequently with gravy and salted water.

  3. Cook for 10 minutes per pound.

Make the mint sauce

  1. For the mint sauce, mix chopped mint with powdered sugar.

  2. Slowly pour in white wine vinegar or cider over the mint mixture.

  3. Make the sauce in advance to enhance the flavor.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. For the gravy, drain fat from the dripping pan.

  2. Dredge in flour and brown well.

  3. Add water from boiled bones and rub smooth.

  4. Season with more salt and pepper if needed, then add lemon juice.

  5. Strain the gravy and serve in a hot sauce bowl.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

  5. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Saddle of lamb
Forms the main roast; its fat and meat cook and brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and richness on the lamb surface.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mint and softens the sharpness of the vinegar.
Fresh mint leaves
Supplies the herbal aroma that defines the sauce.
White wine vinegar or cider
Adds acidity that gives the mint sauce its tang.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it browns in the drippings.

The step that matters

Dredge in flour and brown well. Flour must be cooked in the fat until it browns; otherwise the gravy tastes raw and pastey and will not thicken smoothly when liquid is added.

Swap the mint

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, sugar, white wine, flour, pepper, 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.

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