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Lamb, Neck Of, Stewed

A stew of lamb neck with carrot, turnip, onion, capers, and rice, simmered in stock and finished with brown roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 145 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Lamb, Neck Of, Stewed

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Place the jointed neck of lamb in a stewpan with the sliced carrot, turnip, and onion.

  2. Add enough stock or liquor to just cover the meat.

  3. Stir in the chopped capers and rice.

  4. Cover and cook gently for about 1.5 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Transfer the meat and vegetables to a dish.

  2. Boil the gravy quickly, add a little brown roux and seasoning, then boil again.

  3. Pour the gravy over the meat before serving.

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 + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together145 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of lamb
Slow gentle cooking breaks down connective tissue, making the meat tender and rich.
Rice
Releases starch as it cooks, helping thicken the gravy.
Brown roux
Thickens the gravy and adds colour and a toasted, savoury depth.
Capers
Add a sharp, acidic bite that cuts through the richness of the lamb.

The step that matters

Cook gently after covering. Gentle simmering keeps the liquid just below a hard boil so the lamb becomes tender without toughening or breaking apart. A rapid boil would make the meat stringy and cloud the gravy.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, carrot, turnip, onion, mutton, rice):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Celeryfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Capersthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, carrot, turnip, onion, mutton, rice. 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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