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Boast Lamb

A roasted lamb forequarter served with a mint sauce and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and mint work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 772 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Boast Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Roast the lamb

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Roast the fore quarter of lamb for about 1.5 hours, basting frequently.

Make the mint sauce and serve

  1. Collect the drippings from the roaster, add a little water, coarse sea salt, and flour.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Finely chop the mint.

  4. In a bowl, combine the chopped mint, brown sugar, and vinegar. Stir well and serve in a sauceboat.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  4. Mint + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lamb + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fore quarter of lamb
Is the main meat, cooked slowly so it becomes tender and juicy.
Flour
Thickens the pan drippings into a smooth, lightly bodied gravy.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses flavour that balances the sharp vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that cuts the richness of the lamb and sharpens the sauce.
Fresh mint
Provides a bright, herbal aroma that complements the lamb.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Mintthe original

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