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Vol-au-Vent of Lambs’ Tails

A puff pastry shell filled with stewed lamb tails and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 pastry

  1. Cut out a vol-au-vent shape from puff pastry.

  2. Bake until golden.

  3. Remove the soft part from the inside of the pastry.

Cook the lamb tails

  1. Scald the lambs' tails.

  2. Cut them into 1-inch pieces.

  3. In a stew pan, combine lambs' tails, green onions, parsley, mace, and butter.

  4. Cover with boiling water and stew until tender.

  5. Remove the tails, wipe off grease.

  6. Place the tails in a clear Bechamel sauce.

  7. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  8. Stir in egg yolks and cream just before serving.

Serve

  1. Place the vol-au-vent on a dish.

  2. Fill with lamb tails.

  3. Pour sauce over.

  4. Add boiled parsley sprigs to the sauce just 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

Puff pastry
Forms the golden, flaky, crisp shell that holds the filling.
Lambs' tails
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender through slow stewing in liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and gives the stew a smooth mouthfeel.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce and add richness when stirred in without boiling.
Cream
Adds smoothness and richness to the sauce, softening its texture.

The step that matters

Stirring in egg yolks and cream. Egg yolks can scramble and curdle if the sauce boils after they are added. Stir them in just before serving, off the heat or at a gentle warmth, so the sauce thickens smoothly.

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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