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Stewed Lamb, with Tomatoes

A stew of lamb breast pieces simmered with tomatoes, mixed vegetables, parsley, salt, pepper, and water or broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 Lamb, with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Saw the breast of lamb lengthwise through the bones and divide into pieces.

  2. Wash the lamb and place it in a pot with enough water or broth to cover.

Cook the stew

  1. Boil diced carrots, turnips, and onions separately until half done.

  2. Add the boiled vegetables to the stew with the tomatoes.

  3. Boil for an additional 30 minutes.

  4. Thicken if necessary.

  5. Season with salt and pepper.

  6. Stir in the parsley before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve two pieces of lamb on each plate, arranging the vegetables and sauce around them.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

  4. Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,322 recipes

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

  5. Lamb + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together979 recipes

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

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 and flavorful during long simmering.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body to the broth, building a savory, slightly tangy sauce.
Mixed vegetables
Add sweetness, texture and body to the stew as they soften in the liquid.

The step that matters

Boil the vegetables separately until half done. Cooking them only partway keeps them from turning mushy during the 30 minutes of simmering with the lamb and tomatoes, so they hold their shape and texture.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Eggplantfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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