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A roasted leg of lamb served with mint sauce, peas, potatoes, and currant and raspberry tarts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Dinner

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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the leg of lamb until cooked through.

  2. Prepare mint sauce to serve with the lamb.

  3. Cook peas and potatoes until tender.

  4. Serve with currant and raspberry tarts for dessert.

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. Mint + raspberrytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Peas + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Lamb + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Currant + raspberrytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together366 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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 protein of the dish, cooking through in the oven to become tender.
Potatoes
Starchy side that softens when cooked until tender, giving the plate body.
Peas
Green side vegetable that turns tender with cooking, adding sweetness and color.

The step that matters

Roast the leg of lamb until cooked through. Lamb is easy to over- or under-cook because the thick joint heats unevenly. Checking the internal temperature rather than relying on time helps it reach a safe, tender doneness.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, mint, sauce, peas, potato, raspberry):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Red currantfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, mint, sauce, peas, potato, raspberry. 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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