Name: A Fore Quarter of Lamb
Ingredients: 1 fore quarter of lamb; juice of 1 lemon or Seville orange; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Lamb and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,127 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

A Fore Quarter of Lamb

Ingredients

1 fore quarter of lamb
juice of 1 lemon or Seville orange
coarse sea salt

Directions

Roast the fore quarter of lamb.
Separate the shoulder from the breast and ribs using a knife.
Squeeze lemon or Seville orange juice on the area where the shoulder was removed.
Add a little coarse sea salt and replace the shoulder.
Separate the gristly part from the ribs as desired.

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.

Lamb + lemontop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,127 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fore quarter of lamb: Forms the main body of the roast, so its fat and connective tissue shape the final texture.
Lemon or seville orange juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavour of the lamb.

“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.