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Roast Lamb or Veal

A roasted lamb or veal seasoned with salt pork, salt, and optional mint sauce, served with gravy from the drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 623 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Roast Lamb or Veal

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. Make a dressing for the lamb and tie it in closely.

  2. Roast the lamb at 400°F (200°C) for 1.5 to 2 hours.

  3. Place small pieces of salt pork on the lamb and baste frequently.

  4. About 15 minutes before removing, baste with 1 tablespoon of salt.

  5. Remove from the pan and keep hot.

Veal variation

  1. For veal, roast an 8 lb piece for 4 hours, basting frequently with salt pork.

Make the gravy and mint sauce

  1. Make gravy from the drippings and serve hot.

  2. For mint sauce, combine 1 cup finely minced spearmint, ⅓ cup vinegar, ⅓ cup hot water, and 2 teaspoons sugar; bring to a boil and serve hot.

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 + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together623 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lamb + saucetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together925 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

  4. Pork + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pork + minttop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together353 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

Lamb
The main meat, which becomes tender and juicy as it roasts slowly.
Salt pork
Its fat renders as the meat roasts, basting the surface and keeping it moist.

The step that matters

Basting frequently with salt pork. Rendered fat from the salt pork coats the surface as it roasts, helping keep the meat moist and browned. Skipping or delaying the basting can leave the outside dry.

Swap the mint

The recipe marks mint as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, pork, sauce):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pork, 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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