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House-Lamb Steaks, White

Stewed lamb steaks in milk and water, finished with veal gravy, cream, flour, and white mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

House-Lamb Steaks, White

Ingredients

Directions

Stew the lamb

  1. Stew the house lamb steaks in milk and water until very tender, adding a bit of lemon peel, salt, pepper, and mace.

  2. Prepare veal gravy and place the steaks into it.

Finish the sauce

  1. Mix mushroom powder, cream, and flour, then shake the steaks in this mixture.

  2. Stir and heat until hot but do not boil.

  3. Just before serving, add a few white mushrooms.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + vealtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

House-lamb steaks
Provide the main meat, which becomes very tender after slow stewing in liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and body to the sauce, giving it a smooth, thick texture.
Flour
Thickens the cream mixture so it coats the steaks.
Veal gravy
Forms the savory base of the sauce that the steaks rest in.
White mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and a soft texture to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Heat without boiling. Once cream and flour are combined, boiling can cause the cream to separate and the thickened sauce to become grainy or break. Gentle heating keeps it smooth and cohesive.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, milk, lemon, pepper, veal, cream, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, milk, lemon, pepper, veal, cream, flour. 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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