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Lamb Goulash

A hearty stew of lamb, onions, garlic, paprika, carrots, and potatoes simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Lamb Goulash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the lamb into bite-sized pieces.

  2. In a large pot, sauté chopped onions and minced garlic until soft.

Brown and simmer

  1. Add the lamb and brown on all sides.

  2. Stir in paprika, diced carrots, and cubed potatoes.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Pour in enough water to cover the ingredients.

  5. Simmer until the lamb is tender and the vegetables are cooked through.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Garlic + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,517 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through long, slow simmering.
Onions
Soften as they cook, adding sweetness and a savoury base to the stew.
Garlic
Adds aroma that mellows and sweetens as it cooks in the pot.
Paprika
Contributes its characteristic colour and a mild, sweet, earthy flavour.
Potatoes
Hold their shape and thicken the broth slightly as their starch releases.

The step that matters

Browning the lamb on all sides. Browning creates Maillard flavour compounds that add depth to the broth. Crowding the pot or stirring too early prevents proper browning and leaves the meat greyish and flat.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, onion, garlic, potato, pepper):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, onion, garlic, potato, pepper. 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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