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Lamb Stew

A baked lamb dish layered with tomatoes, mashed potatoes, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,798 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lamb Stew

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold roast lamb into thin slices.

Assemble

  1. Layer the lamb in a baking dish and season with salt, pepper, and bits of butter.

  2. Add a layer of canned tomatoes with seasoning, then another layer of meat.

  3. Cover with cold mashed potatoes and dot with butter.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 15 minutes until heated through and slightly browned.

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

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Lamb + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Lamb + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together979 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast lamb
Forms the meaty base layers of the dish and provides most of its savory flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the top layer brown in the oven.
Canned tomatoes
Adds moisture and acidity that keep the lamb layers from drying out as they heat.
Mashed potatoes
Forms a soft, starchy topping that holds in moisture and browns lightly on top.

The step that matters

Bake until heated through and slightly browned. The lamb and potatoes are already cooked, so the bake only needs to heat them through. Overbaking dries the meat and potato topping, while underbaking leaves the center cool.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

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