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Quarters of Lamb Roasted

Roasted lamb quarter seasoned with butter, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Quarters of Lamb Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the joint

  1. Cut off the scrag joint from the shoulder and saw off the chine-bone and breastbone.

  2. Joint the meat thoroughly and crack the ribs in the middle.

  3. Remove the thick skin from the lower part of the breast and break the shoulder bone to allow the knuckle to twist around.

  4. Secure the knuckle in place with a skewer from beneath the breast up to the knuckle.

Skewer and roast

  1. Insert two large skewers at the thin end and pass the spit between the skewers and the ribs through the thick part at the shoulder.

  2. Cover the thin end with double thickness of paper.

  3. Roast the quarter whole for 2 to 2½ hours, ensuring it is well done.

Serve

  1. When serving, place a slice of fresh butter on the meat, sprinkle with cayenne pepper, and drizzle with lemon juice.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lamb + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb fore quarter
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and browned as it roasts.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and moisture to the meat as it is served.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, fatty flavour of the lamb.

The step that matters

Roast until well done. Lamb fore quarter is thick and dense, so it needs a long, steady roast to cook through. Cutting in too early leaves the centre underdone, and the connective tissue in the shoulder only softens fully with sustained heat.

“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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