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Mutton or Lamb Stew

A stew of lamb or mutton with potatoes, onions, milk, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Mutton or Lamb Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stew

  1. Bring the milk to a boil in a skillet.

  2. Add the diced mutton, diced potatoes, and chopped onion to the skillet.

  3. Cream the butter and flour together.

  4. Stir the butter and flour mixture into the skillet until the mixture thickens.

Serve

  1. Serve the stew over hot buttered toast.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb or mutton
Provides the main meat and savory flavor of the stew.
Potatoes
Add bulk and body, softening into the stew to make it heartier.
Butter and flour
Creamed together and stirred in, flour thickens the milk into a smooth, velvety sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a creamy sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter and flour into the hot milk. Flour thickens liquid only when its starch is dispersed evenly. Adding the paste gradually while stirring prevents lumps, and the mixture must be stirred until it thickens so the starch fully swells.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, flour, pepper, milk, potato. 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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