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Breast of Lamb

A lamb breast stewed in broth, seasoned, floured, browned with butter, served over spinach, stewed cucumbers, or green peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 355 recipes. Both carry trans-2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Breast of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the lamb

  1. Stew the breast of lamb in good broth for 20 minutes.

  2. Let it cool, then score it in a diamond pattern.

Season and finish

  1. Season well with pepper, salt, and mixed spices.

  2. Dredge flour over the lamb and place small bits of butter on top.

  3. Finish cooking in a Dutch oven.

  4. Serve on a bed of spinach, stewed cucumbers, or green peas.

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. Spinach + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together355 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cucumber + peastop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Spinach + peastop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together550 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Flour + spinachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,564 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

Lamb breast
Provides the rich, fatty meat that becomes tender during slow stewing.
Flour
Dusted on the surface to help the meat brown and thicken the cooking juices.
Butter
Adds fat and richness as it melts over the lamb during finishing.
Broth
Provides liquid that gently cooks the lamb and carries flavour into the meat.

The step that matters

Stewing in broth for 20 minutes. Stewing needs enough liquid and gentle heat so the connective tissue softens without drying the meat. Stopping early leaves the lamb tough, while overcooking can make it stringy and fall apart.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, flour, butter, spinach, cucumber. 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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