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Roast Lamb

A roast leg of lamb served with currant jelly or mint sauce, mashed potatoes, green peas, asparagus, and a dressed salad or lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Asparagus and lettuce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 313 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Roast Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare and roast

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Season the leg of lamb with salt and pepper.

  3. Roast the lamb in the oven for about 1.5 to 2 hours, or until it reaches your desired doneness.

Serve

  1. Serve with currant jelly or mint sauce, mashed potatoes, green peas, asparagus, and a dressed salad or lettuce.

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. Asparagus + lettucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Peas + asparagustop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together808 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + asparagustop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  5. Potato + lettucetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together322 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

Leg of lamb
Forms the main protein; slow roasting tenderises the meat and browns its surface.

The step that matters

Roasting to the right doneness. Lamb keeps cooking after it leaves the oven, and the interior temperature rises as it rests. Checking doneness with a thermometer rather than by time alone helps avoid overcooked, dry meat.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, potato, peas, asparagus, lettuce):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, potato, peas, asparagus, lettuce. 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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