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Boast Quarter of Lamb, Mint Sauce, Peas, Potatoes

A roasted quarter of lamb served with mint sauce, peas, and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Boast Quarter of Lamb, Mint Sauce, Peas, Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Roast the quarter of lamb until cooked to your preference.

  2. Prepare mint sauce by mixing fresh mint with vinegar and sugar.

  3. Cook peas in boiling water until tender.

  4. Boil or steam potatoes until soft.

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. 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, which firms up and browns as it roasts.
Potatoes
Their starch softens when boiled or steamed, giving a soft, fluffy texture.
Peas
Soften when cooked and add a mild, natural sweetness to the plate.
Mint sauce
Vinegar adds acidity and sugar adds sweetness, cutting through the richness of the lamb.

The step that matters

Roasting the lamb to your preference. Meat keeps cooking from residual heat after leaving the oven, so it should come out a little before the target doneness. Overcooking dries the muscle fibres and toughens the meat.

Swap the potato

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

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

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