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Roast Leg of Lamb

Roast leg of lamb with breadcrumb and herb coating, served with a butter‑flour gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,609 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Roast Leg of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut deep incisions around the bone and in the flesh of the lamb.

  2. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, salt, pepper, marjoram or savory, and butter until combined.

Roast

  1. Fill the incisions with the dressing and season the meat with additional salt and pepper.

  2. Place the lamb on a spit and roast it over a clear fire.

  3. When nearly done, dredge flour over the lamb and baste it with the gravy.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Skim the fat off the gravy, add a little flour mixed with water, and let it boil once.

  2. Serve the gravy in a gravy boat.

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 + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Marjoram + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Leg of lamb
Forms the main cut of meat that is roasted and carved.
Bread crumbs
Absorb butter and seasonings in the dressing, keeping the stuffing moist and tender.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the dressing and keeps the crumbs moist during roasting.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks and helps it hold together.

The step that matters

Letting the gravy boil once after adding the flour and water. Flour needs to be heated so its starch swells and thickens the liquid; stirring it in smoothly before a brief boil prevents lumps and a raw, pasty taste.

Swap the marjoram

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, bread, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Marjoramthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, bread, pepper, butter, flour. 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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