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Lamb a LA Poulette

A lamb stew with butter, flour, stock, herbs, onion, bay leaf, mushrooms, finished with egg yolk and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Lamb a LA Poulette

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a stewpan and stir in flour.

  2. Add hot stock and mix well.

Cook the stew

  1. Add lamb pieces, sweet herbs, salt, pepper, onion, bay leaf, and mushrooms.

  2. Cook until lamb is tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, mix egg yolks with cream and stir into the stew.

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 + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  3. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long slow cooking in the stock.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and carries flavour while the flour is cooked into a roux.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth sauce when cooked briefly with the butter.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce when stirred in off the heat, giving it a silky texture.
Cream
Adds richness and smoothness, softening the sauce alongside the egg yolks.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the stew as they cook.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but can scramble if the stew is boiling. Stir them in off the heat, or over very low heat, to keep the sauce smooth and creamy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, flour, pepper, mushroom, egg, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, flour, pepper, mushroom, 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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