Why it works: Lamb and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,165 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Tea Relish
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the lamb
Boil the lamb until the bones can be easily removed.
Return the meat to the kettle and boil until little water remains.
Season the meat to taste.
Mold and chill
Place the meat in a mold and arrange the hard-boiled eggs lengthwise at intervals.
Keep the mold cold until ready to serve.
Cut into slices before serving.
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.
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Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,165 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lamb + eggtop 27% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,204 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together50,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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
- Provides the main meat, which is cooked until tender and then set in the mold.
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Arranged lengthwise through the meat to give a visible pattern when sliced.
“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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