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Lamb, Fricassee of

A stew of lamb pieces simmered with onion, basil, bay leaves, butter, and capers, served with parsley and lemon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and basil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,294 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Lamb, Fricassee of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the lamb pieces with pepper and salt.

Braise the lamb

  1. In a stewpan, combine the lamb, onion, basil, bay leaves, and butter.

  2. Cover the stewpan and steam gently for 30 minutes, shaking occasionally.

  3. Pour in the boiling water, cover again, and simmer for 1 hour.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Strain the sauce and thicken it with flour mixed with a little water.

  2. Stir in the chopped capers and boil for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Serve on a hot dish, garnished with parsley and lemon slices.

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 + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Clove + basiltop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb breast
Is the main meat, becoming tender as it steams and simmers slowly in liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping flavour the lamb as it steams in the pan.
Flour
Thickens the strained sauce so it clings to the lamb rather than staying thin.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the lamb and butter.

The step that matters

Steaming before adding the boiling water. Gentle steaming with the lid on lets the lamb release juices and render fat, building flavour before liquid is added. Heating too hard can toughen the meat and scorch the butter.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Eggplantfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, clove, basil, butter, flour, capers. 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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