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Lamb, Fricassee of

A stew of lamb pieces cooked with onion, spices, stock, and thickened with flour, served over mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Lamb, Fricassee of

Ingredients

Directions

Brown and braise

  1. Trim the lamb and cut it into 2‑inch squares.

  2. Heat the butter in a stewpan.

  3. Add the onion, bay leaves, cloves, mace, peppercorns, salt, and pepper.

  4. Add the meat.

  5. Cover and cook gently for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

  6. Add the boiling stock or water and salt to taste.

  7. Simmer gently for 1 hour longer.

Thicken and finish

  1. Mix the flour with a small amount of cold water.

  2. Gradually add about ½ pint of the stew liquid while stirring.

  3. Bring the stew to a boil.

  4. Pour in the thickened liquid.

  5. Boil for 2–3 minutes.

  6. Simmer until the meat is cooked.

  7. Season the sauce.

  8. Add capers to taste.

Serve

  1. Arrange the meat inside a border of mashed potatoes.

  2. Pour the sauce 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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Flour + caperstop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,024 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Clove + caperstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb breast
Provides the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle cooking in the stew.
Butter
Carries the aromatics' flavour and adds richness to the stewed meat and sauce.
Flour
Thickens the stew liquid into a smooth sauce that clings to the meat.
Stock or water
Forms the cooking liquid that becomes the body of the sauce.
Capers
Adds a sharp, acidic bite that cuts through the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add about ½ pint of the stew liquid while stirring. Adding flour mixed with cold water to hot liquid gradually, while stirring, keeps starch dispersed so the sauce thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, onion, clove, flour, capers, 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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