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Breast of Lamb Stewed with Mushrooms

A lamb breast stew cooked with mushrooms, butter, water, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Breast of Lamb Stewed with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Cut the breast of lamb into pieces.

  2. Melt the butter in a pot over medium heat.

Brown and simmer

  1. Add the lamb pieces and brown them on all sides.

  2. Add the mushrooms and cook for a few minutes.

  3. Pour in the water, season with salt and pepper, and bring to a boil.

  4. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 1 hour until tender.

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. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lamb + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Breast of lamb
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow simmering.
Mushrooms
Add savory, earthy flavor and moisture as they cook down.
Butter
Carries heat for browning the lamb and adds richness to the stew.
Water
Forms the cooking liquid that gently breaks down the meat.

The step that matters

Browning the lamb on all sides. Browning triggers the Maillard reaction, which creates deep savory flavor. Crowding the pot or skipping this step leaves the lamb steamed and pale, so the stew tastes flatter.

“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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