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Lamb neck steaks coated in breadcrumbs and herbs, fried and served around mashed potatoes with butter, cream, and lemon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Cut the neck of lamb into steaks and chop each bone short to make the steaks almost round.

  2. Beat the eggs and coat the lamb steaks, then sprinkle with breadcrumbs, herbs, and seasoning.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the coated steaks until they are golden brown.

  2. Mash the potatoes with butter and cream, then place them in the center of a serving dish, raised high.

  3. Arrange the fried lamb steaks around the potatoes, stacking them with the small bones facing upward.

  4. Garnish the dish with lemon.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Lamb + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the breadcrumb coating to the lamb so it adheres during frying.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating on the lamb steaks when fried.
Potatoes
Provide a soft, creamy base that the lamb steaks are arranged around.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a smooth mash texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the mashed potatoes a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Frying the coated steaks until golden brown. Frying over sufficient heat browns the breadcrumb coating through the Maillard reaction, creating flavour and colour. Too low a heat leaves the coating pale and greasy, while the egg-and-crumb layer can burn before the lamb is cooked through if the heat is too high.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, egg, potato, butter, cream):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, egg, potato, butter, 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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