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Lamb Stew with Peas

A lamb stew cooked slowly with peas, seasoned with pepper and coarse sea salt, thickened with flour and finished with melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Stew with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Cut the breast of lamb into pieces and stew slowly until tender, seasoning with pepper and coarse sea salt.

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

  3. Add 1 quart of shelled peas and more hot water if necessary.

Finish and serve

  1. When the peas are tender, thicken the stew with flour and stir in 2 tablespoons of melted butter.

  2. Let it boil for a few minutes and 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 + 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. Pepper + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  5. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

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

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

Breast of lamb
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow stewing.
Shelled peas
Add sweetness and body to the stew as they cook until tender.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a richer, cohesive sauce.
Melted butter
Adds fat and a smooth, rich mouthfeel to the finished stew.

The step that matters

Thickening with flour. Flour must be stirred in while the stew is hot and then boiled for a few minutes so the starch swells and thickens fully. Adding it to cold liquid or skipping the boil can leave lumps or a thin, starchy-tasting sauce.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, butter, 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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