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Stewed Lamb with Mushroom Sauce

A slow‑cooked lamb shoulder stewed in gravy and mushroom sauce, garnished with green pickles and boiled beets.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 623 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Stewed Lamb with Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the lamb

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Fill the cavity of the lamb with breadcrumbs, chopped pork, and herbs, then sew the edges of the lamb to secure the filling.

  3. Place thin slices of fat pork in a broad pot and add the lamb to the pot.

Stew

  1. Pour in the gravy and cover the pot tightly.

  2. Stew gently for 1 hour.

  3. Turn the meat and cook for an additional 20 minutes.

  4. Transfer the lamb to a hot dish, butter the lamb all over, and keep the lamb warm over hot water.

Make the mushroom sauce and serve

  1. In the same pot, strain the remaining gravy, then add the chopped mushrooms and stew for 5 minutes.

  2. Thicken the sauce with browned flour and bring the sauce to a boil.

  3. Pour the mushroom sauce over the lamb.

  4. Garnish with slices of green pickle and boiled beets.

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. Lamb + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together623 recipes

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

  2. Pork + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  3. Lamb + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together450 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lamb + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb shoulder
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender through long, gentle stewing.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb meat juices inside the filling, keeping the stuffing moist and light.
Fat pork
Lays under the lamb, adding fat and moisture so the meat does not dry out while stewing.
Gravy
Provides the cooking liquid that gently braises the lamb and forms the base of the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and body to the sauce.
Browned flour
Thickens the sauce and adds a toasted, nutty flavour.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with browned flour and bring it to a boil. Flour needs heat to swell and thicken liquid fully; boiling briefly cooks out its raw taste and sets the sauce's consistency. Adding it to a simmering sauce without stirring can cause lumps.

“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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