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Gulash Made of Lamb

A lamb goulash simmered with onions, paprika, and white pepper, served with mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Gulash Made of Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Mix salt with the lamb cubes and let stand for 15 minutes.

  2. Sprinkle flour over the meat and shake well.

Cook

  1. Cook onions in butter until yellow.

  2. Add the meat, paprika, and white pepper; cook for a few minutes.

  3. Cover tightly and place in the cauldron for one hour.

  4. Serve with mashed potatoes.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Lamb + oniontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,407 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb leg
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender during the long covered cooking.
Flour
Coats the meat and thickens the cooking liquid as it simmers.
Onions
Soften and sweeten as they cook, forming the flavour base of the dish.
Butter
Carries the onions' cooking and adds richness to the dish.
Paprika
Adds a mild, sweet, earthy flavour and colour to the meat and onions.

The step that matters

Cover tightly and cook for one hour. A tight cover keeps moisture in so the meat braises gently instead of drying out. Low, steady heat over the full hour lets the tough lamb fibres break down and become tender.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, flour, onion, butter. 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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