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Stewed Breast of Lamb and Peas

A stew of lamb breast, potatoes, peas, and mint simmered in a seasoned broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Stewed Breast of Lamb and Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Wash the lamb and cut it into pieces if too large for the stewpan.

  2. Cover the meat with cold water, add pepper, salt, onion, and parsley.

  3. Bring to a boil and skim off any foam.

  4. Simmer gently until the meat is cooked through.

  5. Pour the broth into a bowl, cool, and remove the fat.

  6. Remove the bones from the meat and return it to the saucepan.

Add the vegetables and serve

  1. Boil the potatoes in their jackets, then peel them.

  2. In an enamel bowl, combine the potatoes, peas, sugar, and mint, and heat through in a saucepan of water.

  3. Once the fat is removed from the broth, return it to the saucepan and add the peas and potatoes.

  4. Discard the mint and serve hot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + minttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,198 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

Breast of lamb
Provides the rich, fatty meat that becomes tender during slow simmering.
Potatoes
Absorb the flavourful broth and add starch that gives body to the stew.
Peas
Add sweetness and a soft texture that contrasts with the tender meat.
Sugar
Rounds out the flavour and balances the saltiness of the broth.
Mint
Adds a fresh, aromatic note that lifts the rich lamb.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam and removing the fat from the broth. Foam and surface fat carry impurities and greasiness that cloud the broth and make the stew taste heavy. Skimming early and chilling the broth so the fat solidifies lets you lift it off cleanly.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, parsley, potato, peas, sugar, mint. 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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