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Slow-braised Lamb with Sweet Potato Mash Recipe

A lovely, slow-cooked lamb recipe from executive chef Ben Purton.

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Why it works: Lamb and sweet potato share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 37 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

4 people
Prep30 min
Cook3 hr 30 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By lovefood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lamb + sweet potatotop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together37 recipes

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

  2. Thyme + rosemarytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Parsnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,096 recipes

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

  4. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29,030 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Parsnip + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, parsnip, carrot, onion, garlic, thyme, rosemary):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Turnipabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, parsnip, carrot, onion, garlic, thyme, rosemary. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).