Skip to main content
Main

To Stew Lamb’s Head

A stew of lamb's head with veal, beef suet, herbs, anchovies, mushrooms, truffles, and a sauce of gravy, oysters, and fried brains.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Stew Lamb’s Head

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the head

  1. Wash and clean the lamb's head.

  2. Soak it in water for 1 hour.

  3. Remove the brains, bones, and tongue carefully.

  4. Remove the eyes.

Make the forcemeat

  1. Chop veal, beef suet, thyme, lemon peel, nutmeg, and anchovies together.

  2. Mix the chopped ingredients with the grated rolls and 4 egg yolks.

  3. Reserve some mixture for balls.

Cook and serve

  1. Stew the oysters in 2 quarts of gravy with mace.

  2. Tie the lamb's head with string and stew for 2 hours.

  3. Beat the brains with lemon peel, parsley, nutmeg, and 1 egg yolk.

  4. Fry in boiling dripping until golden.

  5. Fry the reserved meat mixture into balls and keep warm.

  6. Combine truffles, morels, and mushrooms with the strained gravy from the head.

  7. Add the remaining fried brains and simmer for 1-2 minutes.

  8. Pour the sauce over the lamb's head and arrange the fried brains and balls around it.

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. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  2. Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

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

  3. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

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

  4. Lamb + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together896 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + mushroomtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the forcemeat and enrich the brain mixture, helping it hold together when fried.
Stale rolls
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat body so the balls hold their shape.
Beef suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the forcemeat moist and savoury.
Veal
Provides the main meaty base of the forcemeat balls.
Truffles
Add a deep, earthy aroma to the finished sauce.
Morels
Add a deep, earthy aroma and meaty texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling dripping until golden. The brains and forcemeat balls must be fried in very hot fat so the outside sets and browns quickly, forming a crust that holds the mixture together and adds flavour, rather than absorbing grease and falling apart.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, veal, beef, thyme, lemon, egg, mushroom):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, veal, beef, thyme, lemon, egg, mushroom. 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.

You might also like

Beef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes