## 1 Introduction  
Roasted _tamarix_ lamb, a characteristic meat product in northwest China, is very popular among consumers all over the country. Traditionally, the lamb cubes were skewered with _tamarix_, a special wood material, and roasted on the top of charcoal at 500-550 \({}^{\circ}\)C, then unique flavor were formed. _Tamarix_ is considered as a potential substance to improve food quality due to its highly efficacious antioxidation and antibacterial properties [1]. _Tamarix_ also contains abundant natural flavonoids compounds, which could inhibit the formation of heterocyclic amines in roasted lamb and conducive to meat safety [2]. It is a widely used as skewer to exert a good taste and a unique odor of roasted lamb in China, particularly in Xijiang [3]. Recently, to prevent the pollution caused by traditional meat roasting, environmental-friendly electric roasting with maximum temperature of 500-550 \({}^{\circ}\)C was suggested to apply in meat processing. However, our latest findings indicated that the key volatile compounds with odor activity value greater than 1 of electric-roasted lamb decreased significantly, which reduced by 31% compared to charcoal roasting [4]. Among them, most of are aldehydes, which usually have a lower threshold and play a crucial role in the formation of flavor attributes in meat products. Therefore, it should not be ignored that the flavor attributes of the lamb could be compromised if charcoal roasting was replaced by electric ones, and comprehensive analysis should be carried out to better understand the flavor formation or flavor profile in charcoal and electric-roasted _tamarix_ lamb. The profile and formation of flavor in roasted lamb leg with charcoal, electric, microwave, and superheated steam roasted during processing have been analyzed comprehensively in our lab using headspace solid-phase microextraction combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME/GC-MS) [4, 5]. HS-SPME/GC-MS has been widely applied to evaluate the flavor profile of stir-fried pork slices [6], roasted beef [7],smoked chicken [8], and fried chicken nuggets [9]. However, there are some obvious limitations when evaluating the flavor of meat products using HS-SPME/GC-MS. [PERSON] et al. [10] reported that HS-SPME/GC-MS could not finely distinguish the flavor profile among different meat products. Sensor arrays of electronic nose (E-nose) and electronic tongue (E-tongue) are gradually used to distinguish food odor or taste due to their advantages of high sensitivity and excellent selectivity [11]. They are sensitive to odor or taste of meat or meat products. Slight changes in volatile or taste could cause significant differences in the responses of E-nose or E-tongue sensor [12; 13], which make them effective tools to distinguish odor or taste [14]. [PERSON] et al. [15] reported that using HS-SPME/GC-MS combined with E-tongue and E-nose could clearly distinguish the difference in the flavor of bacon smoked with different woodchips, and the response data of E-nose/-tongue were highly correlated with the contents of aldehydes, alcohols, and ketones. [PERSON] et al. [8] also used HS-SPME/GC-MS combined with E-tongue and E-nose to investigate the flavor characteristics of chicken drumsticks smoked with sugar at different processing stages and found that there were correlations between sensors of E-nose and volatiles with odor activity value >1. However, there are a few studies using E-tongue/-nose and HS-SPME/GC-MS to evaluate the flavor of roasted lamb. Therefore, the objectives of this study were (1) to comprehensively evaluate the profile and formation of flavor in charcoal and electric-roasted _tamarix_ lamb using HS-SPME/GC-MS combined with E-tongue and E-nose; and (2) to reveal the key volatile compounds (markers) in charcoal and electric-roasted _tamarix_ lamb at different processing stages using multivariate statistical methods combined with variable importance in the projection (VIP) procedure.