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Roast Lamb with Mint Sauce

Roast lamb seasoned with salt and pepper, served with mint sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Roast Lamb with Mint Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Secure the lamb in shape with stout cord and place it in a dripping pan.

  3. Add parsley, mint, and sliced carrot to the pan.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast for 15 minutes per pound, basting occasionally with drippings.

  2. Season with salt and pepper halfway through cooking.

  3. Serve with a gravy-boat full of 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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  5. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 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

Fore-quarter of lamb
Is the main cut of meat, cooked whole so its outer layer browns while the inside stays juicy.
Carrot
Sits under the meat in the pan, adding sweetness and aroma to the drippings used for basting.
Mint
Adds a fresh, aromatic flavour that pairs with lamb and is served as the sauce.

The step that matters

Roast for 15 minutes per pound, basting occasionally with drippings.. Lamb is done by time per weight, so a large cut can overcook or stay underdone if weight and oven heat are not matched. Basting with drippings keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, parsley, carrot, pepper, sauce):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, parsley, carrot, pepper, 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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