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Lamb’s Head and Mince

A dish of lamb's head stewed with minced heart, lights, and onion, topped with breadcrumbs and served with liver and brain cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lamb’s Head and Mince

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Scald the lamb's head and remove the hair.

  2. Parboil the head with the pluck.

  3. Divide the head and remove the brains.

Make the mince

  1. Mince the heart, lights, and onion.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the minced ingredients with gravy, butter, flour, salt, and pepper.

  3. Cover and stew for 1 hour.

Bake and serve

  1. Rub the head with the beaten egg yolk.

  2. Mix breadcrumbs with salt, pepper, and minced parsley; sprinkle over the head.

  3. Dot with butter and brown in a Dutch oven.

  4. Slice the liver and fry in butter.

  5. Make cakes from the brains.

  6. Serve the head on the mince, garnished with liver and brain cakes.

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

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Egg yolk
Beaten and brushed on the head to help the breadcrumb coating adhere and brown.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust over the head when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the crust brown when dotted over the head and used for frying.
Flour
Thickens the mince into a smooth, cohesive sauce as it stews.

The step that matters

Browning the head in the Dutch oven. Butter and breadcrumbs only brown well when the surface is dry and hot enough. Too little heat leaves the crust pale and soft, while too much can scorch the breadcrumbs before the head is heated through.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, flour, pepper, egg, parsley, liver. 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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