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Lamb Stewed with Pease

A stew of lamb and peas cooked slowly with butter, flour, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Stewed with Pease

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine lamb pieces and salt pork in a stew pan.

  2. Add enough water to cover the meat.

  3. Cover the pan.

  4. Let it stew until the meat is tender.

  5. Skim off any scum that forms on the surface.

Add the peas

  1. Add the shelled peas and more hot water if necessary.

  2. Cover the pan.

  3. Cook until the peas are tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the butter and flour mixture.

  2. Add pepper to taste.

  3. Let it simmer for a few minutes.

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

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

  2. Pork + meattop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lamb + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together469 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Lamb neck or breast
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender and flavourful through long, slow stewing.
Salt pork
Adds savory fat and salty flavour that seasons the stew as it cooks.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a fresh, tender vegetable element to the stew.
Butter and flour
Flour thickens the cooking liquid, while butter adds richness and a smooth body.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter and flour mixture. Flour added directly to hot liquid clumps; rolling butter in flour first lets it disperse and thicken the stew smoothly as it simmers.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pork, meat, 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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