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Lamb, Fricassee of

A stew of lamb pieces cooked with onion, spices, stock, thickened with flour, finished with capers.

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the lamb

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

  2. Heat the butter in a stewpan, then add the onion, bay leaves, cloves, mace, peppercorns, salt, and lamb.

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

  4. Add the boiling stock or water and salt to taste, then simmer gently for 1 hour.

Thicken and serve

  1. 20 minutes before serving, mix the flour with a small amount of cold water and gradually add it to about ½ pint of the liquid from the stewpan, stirring constantly.

  2. Bring the stewpan contents to a boil, pour in the thickened liquid, and boil for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Simmer until the meat is fully cooked.

  4. Arrange the meat on a serving dish, season the sauce, add capers to taste, and pour 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 meat becomes tender and succulent through long, gentle cooking that breaks down connective tissue.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and carries the aromatic flavours of the spices and onion.
Flour
Starch thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce that clings to the meat.
Onion
Softens during cooking and adds sweetness and savoury depth to the sauce.
Capers
Their briny acidity cuts through the richness of the lamb and sauce.
Stock or water
Provides the cooking liquid that keeps the meat moist and forms the base of the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour mixture to the liquid. Stirring constantly while adding the flour slurry prevents lumps. Boiling for 2-3 minutes then swells the starch granules fully and cooks out the raw flour taste.

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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