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A Ragout of Lamb

A ragout of lamb is a stew made with lamb, bacon, flour, broth, herbs, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,402 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

A Ragout of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Remove the knuckle bone from the lamb.

  2. Lard the lamb with thin bits of bacon.

  3. Dust the lamb with flour.

Cook

  1. Fry the lamb until golden brown.

  2. Place the lamb in an earthen pot or stewpan.

  3. Add the broth or gravy, herbs, and mace.

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 + flourtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,402 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  2. Lamb + macetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together208 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Flour + macetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,974 recipes

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 ragout and becomes tender during slow simmering.
Bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour as it melts into the lean lamb.
Flour
Coats the meat so it browns well and helps thicken the cooking liquid.
Broth or gravy
Provides the liquid that cooks the lamb and forms the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the lamb until golden brown. Browning through frying creates deep savoury flavours from the Maillard reaction. Pale meat tastes flat, and the flour coating needs real colour to develop properly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Turmericfits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, 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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