Name: Pieds De Mouton a LA Sauce Robert
Ingredients: 2 lamb's feet; 2 onions, sliced; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 cup broth; coarse sea salt, to taste; black pepper, to taste; 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard; 1 tablespoon vinegar

Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pieds De Mouton a LA Sauce Robert

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Prepare and cook the lamb's feet as you would for poulette.

Make the sauce

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the sliced onions.
Pour in the broth, then season with salt and pepper.
Add the lamb's feet and simmer until the stew is cooked and reduced.
Stir in the Dijon mustard and vinegar, then serve.

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.

Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,067 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,165 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb's feet: Provide the main body and gelatin-rich texture of the stew.
Butter: Adds fat and richness to the onions and sauce.
Onions: Add sweetness and body as they soften into the sauce.
Dijon mustard: Adds sharp flavour and helps emulsify and thicken the sauce.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the reduced sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer until cooked and reduced. Lamb's feet need long, gentle simmering so collagen breaks down into gelatin, giving a tender texture and a glossy sauce. Too brisk a boil can toughen the meat and scorch the sauce, so keep it at a gentle simmer and reduce slowly.

Swap the onion

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

Shallotfits better
Lettucefits better
Capsicumfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, pepper, mustard, vinegar. 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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Pieds De Mouton a LA Sauce Robert