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Fried Lamb-steaks

Fried lamb steaks coated in breadcrumbs or cornmeal, pan‑fried in butter and lard, served with a lemon‑flavoured sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fried Lamb-steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Coat the lamb

  1. Dip each lamb steak into the beaten egg.

  2. Roll the steak in bread crumbs or corn meal.

Fry and make the sauce

  1. Fry the coated steaks in a mixture of butter and lard until golden brown.

  2. After removing the steaks, add flour to the pan.

  3. Stir in a walnut-sized piece of butter and hot water.

  4. Add lemon juice and pour the sauce over the steaks 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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
Binds the bread crumbs or corn meal to the lamb so the coating stays on during frying.
Bread crumbs or corn meal
Forms a crisp, golden coating on the outside of the steaks when fried.
Butter and lard
Fat for frying that carries heat evenly and browns the coating.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into the body of the sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, fatty sauce.

The step that matters

Adding flour to the pan after removing the steaks. Flour must be cooked briefly in the fat and pan juices before the hot water is added; otherwise it stays raw-tasting and can form lumps instead of a smooth, thickened sauce.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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