Skip to main content
Main

Lamb Stew

A hearty lamb stew with onions, carrots, potatoes, and a flour‑thickened broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Lamb Stew

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stew

  1. Wash the lamb and place it in a pot with salt water.

  2. Bring the pot to a boil and skim off any foam.

Cook

  1. Add the laurel leaves, onions, and carrots to the pot.

  2. Add the potatoes so they cook with the meat.

  3. Skim off the fat.

Finish

  1. Thicken the stew with flour and water.

  2. Season to taste.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Laurel + carrottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,780 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Lamb + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Provides the main protein and rich flavor that the stew is built around.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the stew becomes more body and coats the food.
Potatoes
Absorb some cooking liquid and add starch, giving the stew body and substance.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they soften into the broth.
Carrots
Add gentle sweetness and color while holding their shape during simmering.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam and fat. Foam from the boil and fat rendered from the lamb can cloud the broth and taste greasy. Removing them while the stew simmers keeps the liquid clear and clean-flavored.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, lamb, laurel, carrot, potato, flour):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, lamb, laurel, carrot, potato, flour. 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.

More lamb stew recipes

with Peas 17in Butter 10with Green Peas 8Irish 4with Rice 3 See all 43 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipes