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Lamb's Head and Mince

Lamb's head served with a seasoned minced lamb mixture, topped 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.

  2. Remove the hair from the head.

  3. Parboil the head with the pluck for a few minutes.

  4. Divide the head.

  5. Remove the brains.

Make the mince

  1. Mince the heart, lights, and onion.

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

  3. Cover and stew for 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. Rub the head with the beaten egg yolk.

  2. Sprinkle with grated bread, salt, pepper, and minced parsley.

  3. Dot the head with butter.

  4. Brown the head in a Dutch oven.

  5. Fry the liver slices in butter.

  6. Form the brains into cakes.

  7. Fry the brain cakes.

  8. 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb's head
Forms the main meat, which is cooked slowly and then browned for a crisp, golden surface.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the surface brown when dotted on the head and used to fry.
Flour
Thickens the gravy-based mince so it becomes a cohesive, spoonable sauce.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the head to enrich the surface and help the crumbs and browning adhere.
Grated bread
Forms a crumb coating on the head that toasts to add texture when browned.

The step that matters

Brown the head in a Dutch oven. The head is already cooked through by stewing, so browning is only for colour and crust. Too much heat or time can dry the crumb coating and scorch the butter, so watch it closely.

Swap the onion

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

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

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