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To Roast a Leg of Lamb

A roasted leg of lamb seasoned with salt and pepper, optionally boiled with vinegar, served with spinach or French beans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,165 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

To Roast a 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 and roast

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the leg of lamb at a distance from the fire to roast gradually.

  3. Season the lamb with salt and pepper.

  4. Roast a 5‑pound leg for 1 hour 15 minutes, or a 6‑pound leg for 1 hour 30 minutes.

Boil instead

  1. If boiling, cover the lamb with cold soft water and add vinegar or salt.

  2. Wrap the lamb in a floured cloth and boil until tender, about 1 hour 30 minutes for a 6‑pound leg.

Serve

  1. Serve the lamb with spinach or French beans, garnished with parsley and lemon slices.

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

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

  2. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Lamb + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together509 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 joint; slow, gentle cooking makes its muscle fibres tender and juicy.

The step that matters

Roasting for the stated time by weight. Lamb keeps cooking as it rests and its muscle proteins tighten with heat, so overcooking dries the meat. Checking doneness early helps keep it juicy.

“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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