Skip to main content
Main

Roast Crown of Lamb

A roast crown of lamb made from loins, seasoned with coarse sea salt, wrapped in greased paper, and served with mint sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Roast Crown of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crown

  1. Cut corresponding parts from the loins, selecting at least six ribs on each side.

  2. Trim the ends of the bones evenly and remove the backbone.

  3. Cut the ribs apart at the backbone but do not separate the chops further.

  4. Scrape the flesh from the bones down to the lean meat.

  5. Shape each piece into a semi-circle with the ribs on the outside, then skewer and tie them together to form a crown.

  6. Roll the trimmings and pack them closely in the center, placing a weighted bowl or cup on top to maintain shape during cooking.

  7. Wrap each bone in greased paper.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast for 15 minutes per pound plus an additional 15 minutes.

  2. Remove the paper from the bones and garnish with paper frills.

  3. Fill the center with riced potatoes, potato balls, French fried potatoes, green peas, or boiled chestnuts.

  4. Serve with Mint Sauce.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Potato + peastop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Lamb + peastop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb or mutton loins
Provide the ribbed meat that is shaped and roasted into the crown.
Potatoes
Fill the center of the crown as a starchy side that browns when fried or roasted.

The step that matters

Scraping the bones and shaping the crown. Scraping exposes clean bone so the crown looks neat, and tying the ribs firmly keeps the shape during roasting. Packing the trimmings in the center and weighting them helps the crown hold its form as the meat shrinks and fat renders.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Cucumberfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, peas, 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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesGreen PeasGreen Peas229 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes