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Ribs of Lamb

Roasted rack of lamb served with gravy, watercress garnish, and mint sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 340 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Ribs of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the chine bone and skin from the rack of lamb.

  2. Cut off the scrag end and crack the ribs in the middle.

  3. Insert skewers crosswise and place on the spit.

Roast and finish

  1. Roast for 30 minutes, basting with butter several times.

  2. Just before removing from heat, baste with butter, dust with flour, and season with coarse sea salt.

  3. Serve with gravy, garnished with watercress, and mint sauce on the side.

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. Flour + watercresstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together340 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Watercress + minttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Rack of lamb
Provides the meat, which is cooked through roasting and carved into ribs for serving.
Butter
Basting adds moisture and promotes golden browning on the outside of the meat.
Flour
Dusted on at the end, it helps form a browned, slightly crisp crust on the surface.

The step that matters

Final basting, flouring and seasoning. Adding flour and butter just before the meat leaves the heat lets them brown and set into a crust rather than burn or turn gummy. Seasoning at this point keeps the salt on the surface where it is tasted.

Swap the mint

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, flour, watercress, sauce. 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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