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Lamb and Sfkew

A neck or breast of lamb simmered in water with sprew, celery, onion, pepper, salt and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lamb and Sfkew

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Place the lamb in a stewpan and cover it with water.

  2. Add the sprew, celery, onion, pepper, salt, and parsley.

  3. Simmer gently until the meat and sprew are tender.

  4. Add sugar to enhance the flavor.

  5. Remove excess liquid before serving, ensuring the sprew surrounds the meat.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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
Supplies the main protein, which becomes tender and rich during slow simmering.
Sprew
Provides the main vegetable bulk and tender texture as it cooks in the broth.
Sugar
Adds a small amount of sweetness that rounds out the savory flavor.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the meat and sprew are tender. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue in the lamb break down slowly and keeps the meat moist. A hard boil toughens the proteins and can make the vegetables fall apart before the meat is done.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, celery, pepper, parsley, sugar. 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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