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Eoast Leg of Lamb

A roasted leg of lamb cooked with butter, pepper, salt, flour, and served with mint sauce and green peas or asparagus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and peas are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Eoast Leg of 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Place the leg of lamb in a covered roaster.

  3. Pour 1 cup of boiling water over the lamb and cover it.

Roast and brown

  1. Cook for about 15 minutes per pound.

  2. Twenty minutes before it's done, remove the cover.

  3. Rub the lamb all over with butter.

  4. Dredge with pepper, coarse sea salt, and flour.

  5. Brown the lamb in the oven.

Serve

  1. Serve with mint sauce and your choice of green peas or asparagus.

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 + peastop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Peas + asparagustop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Lamb + asparagustop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + asparagustop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + minttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of lamb
Provides the main meat, which turns tender and juicy during slow covered roasting.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the surface and helps it take on browning in the oven.
Flour
Coats the surface so it browns more evenly and deeply in the oven.
Mint sauce
Adds acidity and sweetness that cut through the richness of the lamb.

The step that matters

Remove the cover twenty minutes before it's done. Keeping the lamb covered traps steam and keeps the surface moist, so uncovering near the end lets the surface dry and brown. Removing it too early can dry the meat before it is cooked through.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, pepper, flour, sauce, peas, asparagus. 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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