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Lamb Cooked with Peas

A stew of lamb and salt pork with green peas, finished with butter, flour, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Lamb Cooked with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the breast of lamb and salt pork into medium pieces.

  2. Place in a stew pan and add enough water to cover.

Stew and finish

  1. Stew until tender.

  2. Skim off any fat and add green peas.

  3. When done, season with butter rolled in flour and pepper.

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. 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. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Lamb + peastop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

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

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

Breast of lamb
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing in liquid.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that enriches the broth as it stews.
Green peas
Adds sweetness and a bright, fresh vegetable component to the stew.
Butter rolled in flour
Flour thickens the cooking liquid while butter adds richness and a silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stew until tender. Collagen in lamb breast breaks down slowly in moist heat, so stopping early leaves meat tough. Keeping the liquid at a gentle simmer prevents the meat from toughening and the stew from drying out.

Swap the peas

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

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

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