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F R I C a S E E S, Lamb-Stones

A lamb fricassee with lamb pieces, butter, lard, veal gravy, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

F R I C a S E E S, Lamb-Stones

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the lamb

  1. Dip the lamb pieces in butter and fry them in hogs lard until nicely browned.

Make the sauce

  1. Prepare veal gravy and thicken it with butter and flour.

  2. Add a slice of lemon, mushroom ketchup, lemon pickle, and nutmeg to the gravy.

  3. Beat the egg yolk and mix it with thick cream, then add to the gravy.

  4. Keep shaking the mixture over the fire until it becomes white and thick.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the lamb pieces to the gravy and shake to heat them through.

  2. Serve with boiled force‑meat balls arranged around the dish.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb stones
Browned meat that forms the main body of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and helps thicken the gravy with flour.
Flour
Thickens the veal gravy into a smooth sauce.
Veal gravy
Forms the liquid base that the other ingredients are combined into.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sauce and helps it set thick when gently heated.
Thick cream
Adds richness and body, giving the sauce a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Keep shaking the mixture over the fire until it becomes white and thick. Egg yolk thickens when heated but can curdle if it gets too hot or sits too long, so gentle, constant movement over moderate heat keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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