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Ragout of Lamb

A slow‑cooked lamb stew with onions, carrots, peas, and a butter‑flour roux.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ragout of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Make the roux

  1. In a frying pan, melt the butter and flour over medium heat until pale brown, stirring constantly.

Braise the lamb

  1. Add the sliced onion, carrot, and optional peas to the roux, along with the lamb pieces.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and vinegar. Stir well and cover tightly.

  3. Cook slowly for 20 minutes, ensuring it does not burn.

  4. After 20 minutes, add the hot water and parsley, cover again, and simmer until the meat is 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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Provides the main protein, which softens into tender meat during slow, covered cooking.
Butter
Carries flavor and fat, and helps the flour cook into a roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter into a roux.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the pan.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and body to the stew as it softens during braising.

The step that matters

Cooking the roux. Flour and butter must be stirred constantly over medium heat. Scorched roux turns bitter and dark, and it can taint the whole ragout, while undercooked roux leaves a raw floury taste and weaker thickening.

Swap the peas

The recipe marks peas as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, flour, onion, carrot, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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