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Lamb to Choose

A roasted lamb forequarter seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and lemon juice, served with mint sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Lamb to Choose

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare and roast

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

  2. Wipe the lamb joints daily and sprinkle with a little salt in warm weather.

  3. Roast the fore-quarter for about 2 hours, basting frequently.

  4. Remove the shoulder from the ribs and place a lump of butter between them. Sprinkle with pepper, salt, and lemon juice; let the butter melt.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer the shoulder to another dish when done.

  2. Serve with mint sauce and sprinkle with chopped parsley if serving cold.

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 juicy as it roasts slowly.
Butter
Melts over the meat, adding moisture and richness to the lamb.
Lemon or seville orange juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavor of the lamb.

The step that matters

Basting during the roast. Basting spreads the meat's fat and juices over the surface, keeping it moist and helping it brown. Skipping it over about 2 hours can leave the lamb dry.

“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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