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To Roast Lamb

Lamb must be thoroughly cooked.

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

  1. Wash the lamb and wipe it dry.

  2. Spit the lamb and cover the fat with paper.

  3. Place it before a clear, brisk fire.

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

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

  6. Baste with butter until it drops white gravy.

  7. Prepare mint sauce by mincing mint leaves and mixing with vinegar and sugar.

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

  9. Carve the lamb by separating the shoulder from the breast or the leg from the ribs, then sprinkle 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

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.

More roast lamb recipes

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

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