Skip to main content
Main

Iamb Stew

A lamb stew with potatoes, onions, and spices, simmered in water and thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Iamb Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the lamb chops and place them in a stew kettle.

  2. Add the potatoes and onions to the kettle.

  3. Pour in enough water to cover the ingredients.

  4. Stir everything together and season with salt, black pepper, and cayenne.

Cook

  1. Dredge the mixture with flour and stir well.

  2. Set the kettle over low heat and let it simmer until fully cooked.

  3. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  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 chops
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and flavorful as it simmers in the stew.
White potatoes
Add starch that softens during simmering and thickens the stew slightly.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aroma as they cook down into the broth.
Flour
Dusts the mixture so the cooking liquid thickens into a smoother stew.

The step that matters

Set the kettle over low heat and let it simmer until fully cooked. Gentle, low heat lets the collagen in the lamb break down slowly into tender meat without toughening the proteins. A rapid boil can make the meat tough and can break up the potatoes.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Okrafits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes