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Lamb-Stones

Lamb stones simmered in a veal gravy flavored with lemon, mushroom ketchup, lemon pickle, nutmeg, egg yolk, and thick 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 ↓

Lamb-Stones

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

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

Make the sauce

  1. Thicken veal gravy with butter and flour.

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

  3. Beat the egg yolk and mix it with thick cream.

  4. Stir the mixture into the gravy and heat until thick and white.

Bake and serve

  1. Add the lamb stones and bake until heated through.

  2. Serve with boiled force-meat balls 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

Egg yolk
Thickens the cream and gravy as it heats, giving a rich, smooth body.
Thick cream
Adds richness and moisture, producing a smooth, mellow sauce.
Flour
Thickens the veal gravy with butter, giving it body.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, helping the lamb brown and enriching the gravy.

The step that matters

Heating the egg and cream mixture into the gravy. Egg yolk thickens when heated gently, but if the mixture gets too hot it can curdle or scramble. Stir it in off the heat or over low heat and keep stirring until it thickens.

“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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