Skip to main content
Main

Creamed Lamb with Peas

A sauce of butter, flour, cream, and water served over cooked lamb and peas on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Creamed Lamb with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Cook the flour, salt, and pepper in the butter until well combined.

  3. Slowly stir in the cream and water, cooking until the sauce thickens.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the cooked lamb and green peas, stirring to combine.

  2. Serve the mixture on rounds of toast, seasoning with additional butter, salt, and pepper.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pepper + lambtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries the flour, adding richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked in fat and combined with liquid.
Cream
Adds fat and body, giving the sauce a rich, smooth texture.
Cooked lamb
Provides the main protein and savory meaty flavor of the dish.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a bright, fresh flavor that contrasts the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Slowly stir in the cream and water. Adding liquid gradually while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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

You might also like

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesGreen Peas SoupGreen Peas Soup35 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes