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Breast of Lamb, with Peas

A lamb breast braised with peas and stock, finished with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Breast of Lamb, with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Trim the skin and excess fat from the lamb breast.

  2. Cut the meat into squares or triangular pieces.

  3. Dredge the pieces in flour.

Brown and simmer

  1. In a stew pan, melt butter and add herb seasonings.

  2. Add the lamb pieces and brown them nicely.

  3. Pour in the soup stock and simmer until tender.

  4. Skim off any surplus fat.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add the French peas.

  2. Pour onto a hot dish, garnish with croutons, and serve.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + peastop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Lamb + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lamb + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and butter 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 breast
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow simmering in liquid.
Flour
Coats the lamb so it browns well and helps thicken the cooking liquid.
Butter
Carries the seasonings and adds richness while the lamb browns.
Soup stock
Supplies the cooking liquid that softens the meat and forms the sauce.
French peas
Add sweetness and a fresh, green flavour to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Browning the floured lamb. Browning the floured meat in butter builds deep flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pieces left pale or crowded in the pan will steam, tasting flat and greyish instead of savoury.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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