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Lahb Stew

A lamb stew cooked with salt pork, marjoram, pepper, cloves, onion, and tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 various parts of the inside of the leg.

  3. Fill the incisions with stuffing made of bread crumbs, salt pork, sweet marjoram, and pepper.

Simmer and serve

  1. Place the leg in a pot and add just 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. Let it simmer steadily for three hours.

  5. Once done, thicken the gravy if necessary and pour a few spoonfuls over the meat.

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

Lamb leg
Forms the main body of the stew, becoming tender during long, slow simmering.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory richness that moistens the stuffing and seasons the meat from within.
Bread crumbs (in the method)
Absorb fat and juices in the stuffing, helping it hold together inside the incisions.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and depth to the cooking liquid as it softens.
Catsup or tomatoes
Add acidity and sweetness that give the gravy a rounder, tangier flavor.

The step that matters

Simmering the leg steadily. Collagen in the lamb breaks down into gelatin only with long, gentle heat, so a steady simmer keeps the meat tender and the gravy silky. Boiling hard toughens muscle fibres and can leave the meat dry and stringy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, 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, 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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