Name: Fore-quarter of Lamb
Ingredients: 1 shoulder of lamb; butter; coarse sea salt; black pepper; juice of 1 lemon (optional)

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fore-quarter of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Separate the shoulder from the ribs by inserting a fork into the knuckle and cutting around it.
Lift the joint with a fork and cut off the shoulder, leaving some meat on the ribs.
Place a piece of butter on the ribs and return the shoulder to melt the butter.
Remove the shoulder to a separate dish and sprinkle salt and pepper over the ribs.
Add lemon juice over the ribs if desired.
Separate the breast from the ribs and cut the ribs apart.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,165 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lamb + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,232 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).