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House-lamb Steaks, White

Stewed lamb steaks served in a white sauce of veal gravy, cream, and mushroom powder, finished with white mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 a mixture of milk and water until very tender.

  2. Add a bit of lemon peel, salt, pepper, and mace while cooking.

Make the sauce

  1. Prepare veal gravy.

  2. Place the steaks into the veal gravy.

  3. Mix mushroom powder, cream, and flour in a bowl.

  4. Shake the steaks in the cream mixture.

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

Serve

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Lamb + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

House-lamb steaks
Main protein; slow stewing in liquid makes the meat very tender.
Milk
Adds moisture and mild richness to the stewing liquid, helping keep the meat tender.
Cream
Thickens the sauce and adds richness and a silky texture.
Flour
Thickens the cream mixture so it coats the steaks.
Veal gravy
Provides the savoury base of the sauce around the steaks.
White mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and soft texture to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Stir and heat until hot but do not boil. Boiling a cream and flour sauce can cause it to separate or turn grainy and thin. Gentle heating keeps the emulsion smooth and the thickened texture stable.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, milk, lemon, pepper, veal, mushroom, 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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