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Roast Shoulder of Lamb

A roasted shoulder of lamb served with gravy, mint sauce, peas, cauliflower, French beans, and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Roast Shoulder of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Roast the lamb

  1. Roast the shoulder of lamb at a distance from a clear fire.

  2. Baste the lamb constantly while it cooks.

Serve

  1. Serve with gravy poured around the joint.

  2. Offer mint sauce in a separate tureen.

  3. Accompany with peas, cauliflowers, French beans, and potatoes.

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. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Peas + cauliflowertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

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

  4. Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

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

  5. Peas + beanstop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together949 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shoulder of lamb
Is the main meat, cooked whole so the joint stays moist and tender while roasting.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury richness to the sliced meat when poured around the joint.
Mint sauce
Adds acidity and fresh sharpness that cuts through the richness of the lamb.

The step that matters

Basting the lamb constantly. Spooning the cooking juices over the meat keeps its surface moist and helps it brown evenly, so the outside does not dry out before the inside is cooked.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, sauce, peas, cauliflower, beans, potato. 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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