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Sauce

Dhawn Butter for Boiled Lamb

A butter sauce thickened with flour and egg yolk, served with boiled lamb.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Dhawn Butter for Boiled Lamb

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a pint basin, mix the flour with 1 ounce of butter.

  2. Stir in the boiling water, salt, and white pepper.

  3. Boil until the flour loses its raw taste.

  4. Remove from heat and immediately add the beaten egg yolk, stirring well.

  5. Cut in the remaining 2 ounces of butter and add the juice of ½ lemon.

Garnish

  1. Slice the other half of the lemon thinly and use with parsley as a garnish for the lamb.

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. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,658 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lamb + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the sauce.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce and helps it stay smooth as it cools.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk off the heat. Egg yolk proteins set when hot, so adding it to a boiling sauce can curdle it. Removing the pan from the heat first and stirring well lets the yolk thicken the sauce gently and evenly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, lemon, egg, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, lemon, egg, butter. 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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