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Blanquette of Lamb

A lamb dish simmered in a butter‑flour sauce with stock, milk, mace, and mushroom catsup, served with peas and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Blanquette of Lamb

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Reheat the cooked lamb in a saucepan.

  2. In another pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until well combined.

  3. Gradually add the white stock and scalded milk, stirring constantly.

  4. Add the mace, salt, pepper, and mushroom catsup, and mix well.

  5. Serve the lamb garnished with croft tons, alongside green peas or in a potato border, sprinkled with parsley.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mushroom + peastop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  5. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb
Provides the main meat, which is gently reheated so it stays tender in the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and forms the fat base that the flour cooks into a roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when cooked in the butter and liquid.
White stock
Forms the savoury liquid base that gives the sauce its main flavour.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a softer body to the sauce.
Mushroom catsup
Adds a deep, savoury umami note to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the stock and milk to the roux. Flour thickens only when its starch is heated evenly in liquid. Adding the liquids gradually while stirring constantly keeps the sauce smooth and prevents lumps from forming.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, flour, milk, pepper, mushroom, peas):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, flour, milk, pepper, mushroom, peas. 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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