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Breast of Lamb with Peas

A lamb breast braised with peas, butter, sugar, and salt, served with glazed top.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and peas work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 650 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Breast of Lamb with Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Remove the underbone from the breast of lamb, then blanch and braise it.

Stew the peas

  1. In a stewpan, combine the peas, butter, sugar, and salt.

  2. Cover the stewpan and simmer the peas until nearly done.

  3. Add the seasoned cullis and continue to stew the peas until tender.

Serve

  1. Glaze the top of the lamb before serving and place the stewed peas underneath.

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 + peastop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Peas + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Lamb + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Peas + sugartop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Breast of lamb
Forms the main meat, which is blanched and braised until tender.
Young green peas
Provide the main vegetable body and sweet, fresh flavour of the dish.
Fresh butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the peas taste rounded and silky.
Sifted sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the savoury lamb and salt.
Good-seasoned cullis
Adds concentrated savoury flavour and moisture as the peas finish stewing.

The step that matters

Simmering the peas until nearly done. Peas overcook quickly and turn mushy or dull in colour. Covering the pan and cooking gently keeps moisture in and the bright green colour intact, so add the cullis only once they are close to done.

Swap the peas

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, sugar. 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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