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Forequarter of Lamb, a L'hotel

A lamb forequarter cooked with Maitre d'Hotel butter and cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Forequarter of Lamb, a L'hotel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the lamb

  1. Cover the forequarter of lamb with caul.

  2. Cook the lamb until it is a light gold color.

Make the sauce

  1. In a pan, melt the Maitre d'Hotel butter.

  2. Add the cream to the melted butter and stir until hot, but do not boil.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the lamb when serving.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Lamb + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together461 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Maitre d'hotel butter
Adds fat, richness and savory herb flavor to the sauce.
Cream
Gives the sauce body, smoothness and a rich, mellow texture.

The step that matters

Heat the cream without boiling it. Boiling cream can cause its proteins to clump and the fat to separate, leaving the sauce grainy or oily. Heating it gently until hot keeps it smooth and cohesive.

“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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