Name: A Fore-quarter of Lamb
Ingredients: 1 shoulder of lamb; 1 breast of lamb; 1 lemon; coarse sea salt; black pepper

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

A Fore-quarter of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Separate the shoulder from the breast and ribs by sliding a knife under the meat, avoiding cutting too much off the bones.
If the lamb is large, place the shoulder in another dish.
Squeeze half a lemon over the shoulder and the breast and ribs.
Season with a little black pepper and coarse sea salt.
Remove the gristly part from the ribs and serve according to your guests' tastes.

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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,165 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lamb + lemontop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,127 recipes

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