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Peas Stewed with Lamb

A stew of lamb and peas cooked slowly in water, seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and optionally thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Peas Stewed with Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the lamb.

  2. Cook the lamb slowly in water until well done.

  3. Add the peas, salt, pepper, and butter to the pot.

  4. If desired, thicken the mixture with a blend of flour and water.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Lamb + peastop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together650 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Provides the main protein and body of the stew as it cooks until well done.
Peas
Add sweetness and a tender, fresh texture to the stew.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky moisture to the finished stew.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid to give the stew a fuller body.

The step that matters

Cooking the lamb slowly in water until well done. Slow, gentle simmering breaks down the tough connective tissue in lamb, making it tender. Cooking too fast or too briefly leaves the meat firm and chewy.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Beansfits better
  4. Peasthe original

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