Name: Lamb Stewed with Peas
Ingredients: neck or breast of lamb, cut into pieces; salt pork, sliced thin; water, enough to cover the meat; 1 quart green peas, shelled; butter, a small amount; flour, for thickening; pepper, to taste

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 ↓

Lamb Stewed with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

In a stew-pan, combine lamb pieces and sliced salt pork.
Add enough water to cover the meat and cover the pan.
Let it stew until the meat is tender, then skim off any scum.
Add the shelled peas and more hot water if necessary.
Cover and cook until the peas are tender.
Roll a bit of butter in flour and add it to the stew along with pepper.
Let it simmer for a few minutes and serve.

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.

Lamb + porktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together623 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Pork + meattop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,208 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,165 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Lamb + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together469 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb: Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long, slow stewing.
Green peas: Add sweetness and a fresh vegetable body to the stew.
Flour: Thickens the cooking liquid into a light, smooth sauce when mixed with butter.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the flour blend smoothly into the stew.

The step that matters

Roll a bit of butter in flour and add it to the stew. Flour added directly to hot liquid can clump; coating it in butter first helps it disperse evenly so the stew thickens smoothly rather than lumpily.

Swap the peas

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

Almondfits better
Beansfits better
Sesamefits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pork, meat, butter, flour, 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.

Green Peas229 recipes

Pork Cake107 recipes

Roast Pork82 recipes

Meat Croquettes52 recipes

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Lamb Stewed with Peas