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Quarter of Lamb

Roasted quarter of lamb served with green peas, potatoes, and mint sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint 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 ↓

Quarter of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Trim the quarter of lamb neatly.

  2. Roast it carefully until cooked to your liking.

  3. Serve with green peas, potatoes, and 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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Lamb + peastop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Provides the main protein, whose texture firms and browns as it roasts.
Potatoes
Starchy side that becomes crisp and fluffy when roasted or boiled.
Green peas
Adds sweetness and a fresh, bright note that balances rich roasted lamb.

The step that matters

Roast it carefully until cooked to your liking. Lamb keeps cooking after it leaves the oven, and overcooking dries out the muscle fibres. Checking the internal temperature and resting the meat before carving helps keep it juicy and evenly done.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, peas, mint, 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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