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Lamb's Head and Pluck

A savory dish of lamb head and pluck baked with cream, egg yolks, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Lamb's Head and Pluck

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Scald the pluck, then mince it very fine when cold.

  2. Mix the brains with the minced pluck and stew in stock with sweet herbs, onion, pepper, salt, lemon peel, and nutmeg.

  3. When stewed enough, add cream and egg yolks.

Prepare and bake the head

  1. Prepare the head by scalding it in salted water until nearly done.

  2. Remove the head, pour beaten egg yolks over it, and cover with bread crumbs.

  3. Baste with egg yolk again and sprinkle more bread crumbs on top.

  4. Bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) until brown, then season with pepper and salt 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Pluck
Forms the minced body of the filling, giving it a fine, meaty texture.
Brains
Adds richness and a soft, creamy body to the minced filling.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and enrich the topping, helping it set and brown.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the cooked filling soft.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp topping that browns well in the oven.

The step that matters

Scalding the head only until nearly done. The head finishes cooking in the oven, so overcooking it in the scald would leave the meat dry and tough by the time it browns.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pepper, lemon, nutmeg, cream, egg, bread):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pepper, lemon, nutmeg, cream, egg, bread. 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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