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Celery Stewed with Lamb

A stew of lamb neck chops and celery, thickened with butter, flour, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Celery Stewed with Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crack the bones of the lamb chops across the middle and place them in a stew pan.

  2. Chop the celery and mix it with the meat.

  3. Season the mixture with salt and pepper.

Cook

  1. Roll the butter in the flour and add it to the pan along with the water.

  2. Cover the pan and let it simmer slowly until the celery is soft.

  3. If the gravy reduces too much, add a little water.

  4. If it is not thick enough, stir in a little flour mixed with cold water.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Celery + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,905 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lamb + celerytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together371 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb chops
Provide the meat and bone flavour that gives the stew its body.
Celery
Softens during slow simmering and adds vegetable flavour and bulk to the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour into the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a gravy as it cooks.

The step that matters

Thickening the gravy. Flour rolled in butter disperses more evenly, and flour stirred into cold water avoids lumps. If the gravy is too thin or too thick, adjusting it with these steps keeps the texture smooth.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Celerythe original

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