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Lamb Steaks, Brown

Brown lamb steaks coated in seasoned breadcrumbs, fried and served with a butter‑flour‑port wine gravy, optional mushrooms, and garnished with pickled gherkins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lamb Steaks, Brown

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the steaks

  1. Flatten the lamb steaks and dip them in the beaten egg.

  2. Coat the steaks with the seasoned bread crumbs made from mixing the crumbs, salt, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, and lemon zest.

Cook and make the sauce

  1. Fry the steaks in hot fat until cooked through.

  2. Thicken the gravy by mixing the butter and flour. Add the mixture to the gravy.

  3. Stir in the port wine and the stewed mushrooms, if using.

Serve

  1. Serve the steaks on a hot dish. Pour the sauce over them.

  2. Garnish with fried sippets or pickled gherkins.

  3. Serve with green peas or stewed cucumbers.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb steaks
Provide the meat that is cooked through and served as the main dish.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the steaks during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the outside of the steaks when fried.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the gravy into a smooth sauce.
Port wine
Adds depth, sweetness and aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the steaks in hot fat until cooked through. The egg and crumb coating browns quickly in hot fat, so the steaks can darken before the centre is cooked. Keeping the fat hot enough to brown, while giving the meat enough time to cook through, prevents a pale coating over undercooked meat.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, egg, bread, pepper, parsley, lemon, 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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