Skip to main content
Main

Roast Quarter of Lamb

Roast Quarter of Lamb is seasoned with salt pork, bread crumbs, parsley, and stock gravy, vinegar, mint, egg yolk, mushroom catsup, served with peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,198 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Roast Quarter of 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.

Prepare

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

  2. Lard the quarter of lamb slightly with salt pork.

  3. Sprinkle the lamb with bread crumbs and finely-chopped parsley.

Roast and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix stock gravy, vinegar, chopped mint, egg yolk, and mushroom catsup.

  2. Pour the sauce over the lamb and let it roast in the oven for a few moments.

  3. Serve with boiled green peas and a bunch of mint.

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. Parsley + minttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 recipes

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

  2. Lamb + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together623 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Pork + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  4. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Quarter of lamb
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the flavour of the roast.
Egg yolk
Binds the sauce so it clings to the meat and stays cohesive as it roasts.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and add a light crust texture on the surface of the lamb.
Stock gravy
Adds moisture and savoury body to the sauce poured over the lamb.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavour of the lamb and sauce.

The step that matters

Pour the sauce over the lamb and roast for a few moments. The sauce contains egg yolk, which can curdle or scramble if overheated for too long. Roasting only briefly keeps the sauce smooth while it sets lightly on the meat.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, pork, bread, parsley, vinegar, egg, mushroom):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pork, bread, parsley, vinegar, egg, mushroom. 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 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes