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Leg of Lamb, Roasted

A roasted leg of lamb served with mint sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,372 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Leg of Lamb, Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and cook

  1. Soak the leg of lamb in warm water for more than 2 hours.

  2. Wrap the lamb in a cloth and boil it slowly for 3 hours.

  3. Cover the lamb with buttered paper and roast it at 400°F (200°C).

  4. Baste the lamb frequently to prevent burning.

Serve

  1. Serve with mint sauce.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 body of the dish, and its meat becomes tender with long, slow cooking.
Flour
Listed in the ingredients but not used in any step, so its role is not stated.
Buttered paper
Covers the lamb during roasting, helping to hold in moisture while the meat cooks.

The step that matters

Basting the lamb frequently. Basting spreads fat and juices over the surface, which keeps the meat moist and helps prevent the exterior from drying out or burning during roasting.

Swap the mint

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, flour, pepper, 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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