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Amb Terrapin

A lamb and egg sauce with mustard and Worcestershire, served hot on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Amb Terrapin

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, blend the flour with the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the cream, stock, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil for 5 minutes.

  4. Press the yolks of the hard boiled eggs through a sieve into the sauce.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in the diced lamb and chopped egg whites.

  2. If desired, add sherry.

  3. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

  4. Serve hot on toast.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,120 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Thickens the butter and cream mixture into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Forms a roux with the flour and adds richness to the sauce.
Cream
Adds body and richness, giving the sauce a smooth texture.
Hard boiled egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and give it a thick, creamy texture when pressed in.
Cold lamb
Provides the main protein, diced and warmed through in the sauce.

The step that matters

Pressing the egg yolks through a sieve. Yolks must be pushed through a fine sieve so they break into small particles and blend evenly. Lumps stay visible and make the sauce grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cream, sauce, egg, lamb, sherry. 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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