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Shoulder of Lamb or Mutton

A roasted shoulder of lamb or mutton, floured and cooked in dripping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and mint work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 772 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Shoulder of Lamb or Mutton

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare and roast

  1. Sprinkle the joint with flour.

  2. Place the joint in a baking tin with some good dripping.

  3. Bake in a preheated 400°F (200°C) oven for five minutes, then turn the joint.

  4. Lower the heat to 350°F (175°C) and continue cooking.

  5. Baste the joint well during cooking.

  6. Cook for about one hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with mint or onion sauce.

  2. Make gravy from the tin using less flour, similar to beef gravy.

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

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

  2. Lamb + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Flour + minttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Shoulder of lamb or mutton
Provides the meat that becomes tender and juicy with slow roasting.
Flour
Dusted on the surface, it helps the outside brown and thickens the pan juices into gravy.
Dripping
Fat that conducts heat to the joint's surface, promoting even browning and flavour.

The step that matters

Basting the joint during cooking. Spooning hot fat over the meat keeps the surface moist and encourages even browning, while the juices left in the tin become the base for the gravy.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, flour. 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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