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Le Quartier D’agneau Roti

Roasted leg of lamb seasoned with salt, pepper, herbs, and olive oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rosemary and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,340 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Le Quartier D’agneau Roti

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Rub the leg of lamb with olive oil, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

  3. Place fresh herbs on top of the lamb.

Roast and rest

  1. Roast in the oven for about 1.5 to 2 hours, or until the internal temperature reaches 145°F (63°C).

  2. Let rest for 15 minutes before carving.

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. Rosemary + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Rosemary + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,590 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Thyme + olivetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,948 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

  5. Pepper + rosemarytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 supplies the meat that cooks to tenderness.
Olive oil
Carries the seasoning over the surface and helps the outside brown in the oven.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and draws moisture to the surface, aiding browning.
Fresh herbs
Add aroma to the lamb as it roasts, with rosemary and thyme as suggested.

The step that matters

Let rest for 15 minutes before carving. Heat pushes juices toward the centre of the meat during roasting. Resting lets the muscle fibres relax so juices redistribute, keeping the slices moister when carved.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Thymethe original
  2. Oreganofits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Cuminfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, rosemary, olive. 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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