Name: Fore-quarter of Lamb
Ingredients: 1 shoulder of grass lamb; juice of 1 lemon or Seville orange; pepper; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

Fore-quarter of Lamb

Ingredients

1 shoulder of grass lamb
juice of 1 lemon or Seville orange
pepper
coarse sea salt

Directions

Separate the shoulder from the breast and ribs by passing a knife under the shoulder.
Squeeze lemon or Seville orange juice over the shoulder.
Sprinkle with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Place the shoulder on a serving dish.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,165 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lamb + lemontop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,127 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Grass + lambtop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Grass + peppertop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together37 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).