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Barbecued Lamb

Barbecued lamb cooked with a sauce of cayenne pepper, mustard, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Barbecued Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Place the piece of lamb in a baking dish with ½ cup of water.

  3. In a bowl, mix cayenne pepper, mustard, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Baste the lamb well with the sauce.

  2. Cook in the oven until the lamb is tender, basting occasionally.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Is the main protein, which becomes tender as it cooks slowly in the oven.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce a sharp, tangy flavor.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavor and helps emulsify the sauce.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savory depth and a salty, umami flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Basting the lamb. Basting keeps the surface moist with sauce and helps build flavor while the lamb cooks slowly. Repeated basting during the long bake prevents the outside from drying out.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, vinegar, 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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