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Lamb, Loin Of, Stewed

A stewed lamb loin cooked with stock, mint, lemon, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lamb, Loin Of, Stewed

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Skewer the loin of lamb.

  2. Place the lamb in a saucepan that is nearly its size.

  3. Add the stock, mint leaves, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

  4. Cover the pan and cook until the lamb is 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Mint + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,998 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Lamb + minttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together772 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb loin
Provides the main protein, which becomes tender through slow, covered cooking in liquid.
Stock
Adds moisture that keeps the lamb from drying out while it cooks.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the lamb and stock.
Mint leaves
Adds a fresh, aromatic herb flavour to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Cover the pan and cook until the lamb is tender. Covering traps steam and keeps the liquid from evaporating, so the lamb cooks gently in moist heat. Tenderness depends on the connective tissue breaking down slowly, so the cook should check for tenderness rather than rely only on a set time.

Swap the mint

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, lemon, 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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