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Lamb, Leg Of, Stewed

A leg of lamb stewed with turnips, carrot, leek, garlic, green peas and mint in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lamb, Leg Of, Stewed

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Place the leg of lamb in a deep baking pan with the turnips, carrot, leek, garlic, salt, cayenne pepper, and enough water to cover the lamb.

Cook

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour after it begins to simmer.

  2. Add the green peas, mint, and sugar, and stew for an additional 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish with the vegetables around it, pouring a little gravy over the top and serving the rest in a tureen.

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. Turnip + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,046 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of lamb
Provides the main body of meat, which becomes tender as it cooks slowly in liquid.
Turnips
Add earthy sweetness and soften into the braising liquid, adding body to the gravy.
Green peas
Add a bright, sweet flavour and a tender texture at the end of cooking.
Leek
Adds a mild onion-like aroma that flavours the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the green peas, mint, and sugar. Peas cook quickly and turn dull and mushy if stewed too long, so they are added only for the final 30 minutes. The small amount of sugar balances the savoury gravy and rounds out the flavour.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, turnip, carrot, leek, clove, garlic, pepper):

  1. Lentilsfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, turnip, carrot, leek, clove, garlic, 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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