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Lamb Stewed with Peas

A lamb stew cooked with peas, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,165 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lamb Stewed with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Place the lamb pieces in a stewpan and add enough water to cover them.

  2. Cover the pan and simmer for 20 minutes.

  3. Skim off any scum.

Finish the stew

  1. Add the salt and shelled peas.

  2. Cover the stewpan and let it simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Mix the flour with the butter and stir it into the stew.

  4. Let it simmer for an additional 10 minutes.

  5. Serve with boiled new potatoes and add mace and pepper if desired.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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
Provides the main meat, which turns tender and flavorful during long, gentle simmering.
Shelled peas
Add sweetness and a fresh, green flavor while staying tender in the stew.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the stew's liquid as it simmers, giving it body.

The step that matters

Skimming off the scum. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise during the first simmer. Removing it keeps the broth clear and clean-tasting instead of cloudy or greasy.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, peas, 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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