Name: Stewed Shoulders of Lamb with Green Peas
Ingredients: 2 shoulders of lamb, cut into moderate-sized squares; 3 small onions, chopped; 1 carrot, chopped; 1 bunch of parsley; 2 tablespoons of butter; Coarse sea salt, to taste; Black pepper, to taste; ½ cup of bacon, cut into squares; 1½ pints of green peas

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Stewed Shoulders of Lamb with Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a stewpan, combine the lamb, onions, carrot, parsley, butter, salt, and pepper.

Cook

Heat the stewpan over medium heat and fry the meat until half cooked and nicely browned.
Add the bacon and green peas to the stewpan.
Cover the stewpan and let it cook gently until the meat and peas are tender.
Remove the parsley.
Thicken the stew with a little kneaded butter.
Serve hot.

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,555 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together21,601 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Carrot + peastop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,994 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb shoulder: Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through slow, covered cooking.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, and browns the meat when fried.
Bacon: Adds smoky, salty fat that flavours the stew as it cooks.
Green peas: Add sweetness and body, softening as the stew cooks gently.
Onions: Build savoury sweetness and aroma as they cook down into the stew.
Kneaded butter: Thickens the stew's cooking liquid into a smoother, richer sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the meat. Frying the lamb until nicely browned builds deep flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale, under-browned meat gives a flatter stew, so the surface needs proper colour before liquid or covering is added.

Swap the peas

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

Chickpeafits better
Beansfits better
Lentilsfits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, onion, carrot, parsley, butter, 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.

Green Peas229 recipes

Carrot Soup134 recipes

Green Peas Soup35 recipes

Tomato Soup526 recipes

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Stewed Shoulders of Lamb with Green Peas