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Lamb Haricot

A slow-cooked lamb chop stew with onions, carrots, and a flour-thickened broth, garnished with parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Lamb Haricot

Ingredients

Directions

Brown

  1. Brown the lamb chops in a skillet.

  2. In the same skillet, brown the sliced onion.

Braise

  1. Add the carrots, salt, pepper, and hot water.

  2. Cook slowly for 2 hours, adding more water if necessary.

  3. Thicken slightly with browned flour before serving.

  4. Garnish with minced parsley.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

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

  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 chops
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender during slow cooking and releases flavor into the liquid.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory depth as it browns in the pan.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the braising liquid as they cook slowly.
Browned flour
Thickens the cooking liquid and adds a toasty, nutty flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook slowly for 2 hours. Low, slow simmering breaks down the connective tissue in the lamb so it becomes tender rather than tough. Too much heat can toughen the meat and reduce the liquid too quickly, so adding water as needed keeps the meat moist.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, carrot, pepper, flour, parsley. 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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