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Fore Quarter of Lamb

A roasted quarter of lamb served with gravy, watercress, mint sauce, salad, and Seville orange juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and watercress work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Fore Quarter of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and roast

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cover the lamb with paper and roast until it is a fine light brown.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, cut off the shoulder of the lamb.

  2. Squeeze the juice of a Seville orange over the shoulder and place it back.

  3. Serve with good gravy and garnish with watercress.

  4. Place mint sauce in a boat.

  5. Serve a salad on the side table.

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. Orange + watercresstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Orange + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together549 recipes

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

  3. Watercress + minttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lamb + minttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together772 recipes

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

  5. Lamb + watercresstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: geraniol (rose, geranium).

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; its fat and connective tissue cook down and keep the meat moist.
Seville orange
Its juice adds acidity and a bright citrus aroma that cuts the richness of the lamb.
Good gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth to the sliced meat.
Mint sauce
Its sharp, acidic flavour contrasts with the richness of the roasted lamb.

The step that matters

Covering the lamb with paper while roasting. The paper shields the surface from direct heat so the meat cooks through without over-browning or drying out before it reaches the intended light brown colour.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, watercress, mint, sauce):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, watercress, mint, sauce. 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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