Skip to main content
Main

Fore Quarter of Lamb

A roasted lamb forequarter seasoned with butter, bacon, egg yolk, gravy, bread crumbs, lemon, and served with mint sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,998 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Fore Quarter of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cover the lamb with a large sheet of buttered paper and place it over a clear, even fire.

Roast and finish

  1. When nearly done, remove the paper and bacon.

  2. Baste the meat with egg yolk mixed with gravy.

  3. Sprinkle more bread crumbs over the lamb and let it brown nicely.

  4. Squeeze lemon juice over the lamb before serving.

  5. Serve with 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. Lemon + minttop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lamb + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender and juicy as it roasts slowly.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the meat moist and helps the surface brown.
Bacon
Releases fat over the meat early on, adding moisture and savory flavor.
Egg yolk
Mixed with gravy, it forms a glaze that sets on the meat and browns.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust on the surface as they toast in the oven.
Lemon
Its juice adds acidity that brightens the rich, fatty flavor of the lamb.

The step that matters

Removing the paper and bacon when nearly done. Once the paper comes off, the surface is exposed to heat and begins to brown. Removing it too early leaves the meat pale; too late and the crumbs may scorch before the lamb is cooked through.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, egg, bread, lemon, sauce):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, egg, bread, lemon, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes