Name: Stew of Lamb, with Green-pease
Ingredients: 2 shoulders of lamb, cut into squares; 2 tablespoons butter; 2-3 small onions, chopped; 1 carrot, chopped; 1 bunch of parsley; 3 cups green peas; ½ pound bacon, cut into squares; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 piece of kneaded butter for thickening

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 ↓

Stew of Lamb, with Green-pease

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

Melt butter in a stewpan over medium heat.
Add lamb, onions, carrot, and parsley; fry until meat is browned.
Season with salt and pepper, then let it cook halfway.
Stir in green peas and bacon; cover with lid and cook gently until everything is tender.

Finish and serve

Thicken the stew with kneaded butter before serving.

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 browns during frying and becomes tender with slow cooking.
Butter: Fat for frying that carries flavour and helps the meat and vegetables brown.
Green peas: Add sweetness and a fresh, green flavour, softening as the stew cooks.
Bacon: Adds smoky, salty fat that flavours the stew as it renders during cooking.
Kneaded butter: Flour and butter paste that thickens the stew's liquid into a smoother sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the lamb. Frying the meat until well browned builds deep savoury flavour through the Maillard reaction. Pale, crowded meat stews grey and tastes flat.

Swap the peas

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

Chickpeafits better
Beansfits better
Lentilsfits better
Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, onion, carrot, parsley, 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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Stew of Lamb, with Green-pease