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Lahb Stew

A lamb stew with bread crumbs, salt pork, marjoram, pepper, cloves, onion, and catsup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,075 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Lahb Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Remove all fat from the leg of lamb and cut off the shank.

  2. Make deep incisions in the leg and fill them with stuffing made of bread crumbs, salt pork, sweet marjoram, and pepper.

Simmer

  1. Place the leg in a pot and add enough water to cover it.

  2. Add cloves, chopped onion, and salt to the pot.

  3. Stir in catsup or tomatoes for added flavor.

  4. Simmer steadily for three hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Thicken the gravy if necessary and pour a few spoonfuls over the meat before serving.

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. Marjoram + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Lamb + porktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together623 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of lamb
Forms the main body of the dish and gives the meat that cooks slowly until tender.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices in the stuffing, keeping it moist and holding the salt pork and herbs together.
Salt pork
Adds fat that melts into the stuffing and meat, contributing richness and savory flavor.
Catsup or tomatoes
Add acidity and sweetness that deepen the flavor of the cooking liquid and gravy.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness that flavors the simmering liquid as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Simmer steadily for three hours. A steady simmer, rather than a hard boil, lets collagen in the lamb break down slowly into tender meat while the liquid stays gentle enough to avoid toughening the fibers.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, bread, pork, marjoram, pepper, clove, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, bread, pork, marjoram, pepper, clove, tomato. 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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