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Lamb Chops En Casserole

A casserole of lamb chops with peas, carrot, mushrooms, bay leaf, salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce or ketchup, baked in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,555 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lamb Chops En Casserole

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Place lamb chops in a casserole dish.

  2. Add peas, chopped carrot, small mushrooms, bay leaf, salt, and pepper.

  3. Flavor with Worcestershire sauce or tomato ketchup.

  4. Pour in enough water to nearly cover the ingredients.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour and 45 minutes.

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. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  2. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Peas + mushroomtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Carrot + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,796 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 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 during the long, moist bake.
Peas
Add sweetness and color, and soften as they cook in the liquid.
Mushrooms
Add earthy savoriness and moisture that enriches the cooking liquid.
Worcestershire sauce or tomato ketchup
Adds acidity and savory depth that seasons the lamb and the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Pour in enough water to nearly cover the ingredients. Too little liquid lets the lamb and vegetables dry out and scorch over a long bake. Keeping the dish nearly covered gently steams and braises the meat so it stays moist and tender.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, carrot, mushroom, pepper, sauce):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, carrot, mushroom, pepper, sauce. 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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