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Ragout of Lamb

A slow‑cooked lamb ragout with bacon, stock, herbs, mushrooms, anchovies, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Ragout of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the lamb

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Lard the lamb pieces with lean bacon and brown them in a skillet.

  3. Place the browned lamb in an earthenware baking dish.

Braise and finish

  1. Add stock, season with salt, pepper, herbs, and mushrooms.

  2. Cook until the lamb is done.

  3. In the pan, add anchovies, flour to thicken the sauce, and lemon juice.

  4. Serve garnished with lemon slices and fried mushrooms.

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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender as it cooks slowly in liquid.
Lean bacon
Larded into the lamb, it adds fat and savoury flavour that keeps the meat moist.
Stock
Provides the cooking liquid that gently braises the lamb and forms the base of the sauce.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the sauce as they release liquid while cooking.
Anchovies
Contribute deep savoury flavour that rounds out the sauce without tasting distinctly fishy.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the lamb rather than staying watery.

The step that matters

Brown the lamb before braising. Searing the larded lamb in a hot skillet creates browned, savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the sauce flat and pale.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Cherryfits less well
  4. Avocadofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, thyme, parsley, mushroom, 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.

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