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Vol-au-vent of Lambs' Tails

A vol-au-vent filled with stewed lamb tails and a béchamel sauce enriched with egg yolk and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Vol-au-vent of Lambs' Tails

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tails

  1. Scald the lambs' tails.

  2. Cut the scalded tails into 1-inch lengths.

Stew and make the sauce

  1. In a stewpan, combine the lambs' tails, green onions, parsley, mace, and butter.

  2. Cover with boiling water and stew until tender.

  3. Remove the tails, wipe off excess grease.

  4. Place the tails in a small amount of béchamel sauce.

  5. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  6. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and cream just before serving.

Assemble and serve

  1. Place the tails in the vol-au-vent case.

  2. Pour the sauce over them.

  3. Garnish with boiled sprigs of parsley before 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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Parsley + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Lambs' tails
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing.
Fresh butter or white fat of veal
Adds richness and moisture during the stewing of the tails.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness when stirred in off the heat.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the sauce boils after they are added they can curdle and turn grainy. Stir them in just before serving and keep the sauce below a boil.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, onion, parsley, butter, egg, cream. 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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