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Lamb Stew with Vegetables

A lamb stew cooked slowly with potatoes, carrots, onion, tomatoes, rice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lamb Stew with Vegetables

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim and wipe the lamb with a damp cloth.

Cook the stew

  1. Place the lamb in warm water and cook slowly for 1½ hours.

  2. Add the potatoes (cut in halves), carrots (cut into 8 pieces each), onion (halved), tomatoes, rice, and salt.

  3. Cook until all the vegetables are tender.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,798 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb necks
Provides the meat and rich flavour as it slowly cooks in the broth.
Potatoes
Soften during cooking and thicken the stew slightly as their starch releases.
Rice
Releases starch that helps thicken the stew's liquid.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a fresh, savoury flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Cook slowly in warm water. Lamb neck is tough connective tissue. Slow, gentle cooking at a low simmer lets collagen break down into gelatin, making the meat tender and the broth silky. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and cloud the broth.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, tomato, carrot, potato, rice):

  1. Okrafits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, tomato, carrot, potato, 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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