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Lamb and Psas

A lamb stew with peas, lettuce, mint, onion, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Peas and mint are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Lamb and Psas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Divide the neck of lamb into chops, if desired.

  2. In a saucepan, combine lamb, onion, pepper, salt, and water.

Stew

  1. Cook until the lamb is half done.

  2. Add peas, lettuce, mint, and sugar; stir well.

  3. Let it stew until fully cooked, ensuring there is not too much liquid.

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. Peas + minttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Peas + lettucetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,293 recipes

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

  3. Onion + lettucetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Lettuce + minttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + lettucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of lamb
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender as it stews slowly in liquid.
Peas
Add sweetness and body to the stew as they cook through.
Lettuce
Softens as it cooks, adding moisture and a mild, sweet vegetable flavor.
Onion
Builds savory depth as it softens and flavors the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Keeping the liquid under control while stewing. Too much liquid dilutes the flavor and turns the stew watery, while too little can leave the lamb dry or scorched. Checking the liquid level as the lamb finishes cooking keeps the texture and taste balanced.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, pepper, peas, lettuce, mint, sugar):

  1. Cucumberfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, peas, lettuce, mint, 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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