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Quarter of Lamb Roasted

A roasted quarter of lamb served with a butter and herb mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,150 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Quarter of Lamb Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Roast the lamb

  1. Lard the lamb underneath and place it on the spit.

  2. Wrap buttered paper around the lamb.

  3. When nearly done, remove the paper to give it a good color.

Make the herb butter and serve

  1. Mix butter with chopped chives, parsley, and fine herbs.

  2. Serve the lamb with the herb butter mixture underneath.

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. Chive + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,322 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Lamb + chivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + chivetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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, cooking to tender meat as it roasts.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and carries the herbs in the sauce-like topping.
Chopped chives
Add a mild onion-like aroma to the herb butter.
Chopped parsley
Adds fresh, green flavor and aroma to the herb butter.

The step that matters

Removing the paper near the end. Removing the buttered paper only when the lamb is nearly done lets the surface brown and gain color. Leaving it on too long keeps the surface pale and steamed, while removing it too early lets the meat dry out before it is cooked through.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, parsley):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Shallotfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, parsley. 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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