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Stewed Lamb with Green Peas

A lamb stew cooked with green peas, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Lamb with Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Remove the skin and fat from the lamb steaks.

  2. Season the steaks with salt, pepper, and nutmeg if desired.

Stew

  1. Place the steaks in a kettle and pour in enough water to cover them.

  2. Stew gently for 1 hour, skimming as necessary.

  3. Add the green peas, lump of sugar, and bits of fresh butter.

  4. Cook slowly until the peas are well done.

Serve

  1. Serve together or in separate dishes.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lamb + peastop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Provides the main body of the stew, becoming tender through long, gentle simmering.
Green peas
Add sweetness and soft, starchy body as they cook down in the broth.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the cooking liquid.
Loaf sugar
Balances savoury flavours and adds a touch of sweetness to the peas.

The step that matters

Skimming during the stew. Skimming the surface foam and fat as the lamb simmers keeps the broth clear and prevents a greasy, cloudy liquid. Gentle heat keeps the meat tender rather than tough.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, pepper, peas, sugar, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, peas, sugar, butter. 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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