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Mutton Cutlets

Mutton cutlets made from seasoned mutton and ham, wrapped in pastry, fried, and served with an egg-based sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets

six parts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mix the mutton, ham, garlic, pepper, nutmeg, melted butter, and mutton gravy in a bowl.

  2. Let the mixture stand in a cool place for 1 hour.

Make the pastry

  1. Beat the egg yolk with cold water.

  2. Mix the beaten yolk into the flour to form a firm paste.

  3. Roll the paste out thinly and cut into squares, then triangles.

Shape and fry

  1. Divide the meat mixture into six parts.

  2. Place one part in each triangle of paste, fold over, and trim to shape like cutlets.

  3. Press the edges to seal.

  4. Heat boiling fat in a stewpan.

  5. Fry the cutlets for 12 minutes until pale brown.

  6. Drain the cutlets on a sieve for 3 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Pound the hard-boiled egg yolks.

  2. Mix in the beaten yolk, white pepper, salt, mustard powder, and salad oil gradually.

  3. Add tarragon vinegar and regular vinegar drop by drop while stirring.

  4. Stir in the chopped chives.

  5. Serve the sauce on a cold dish with the hot cutlets arranged 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast mutton
Forms the main meat filling that gives the cutlets their body and flavor.
Dried flour
Forms the firm paste that encloses the filling and crisps when fried.
Melted butter
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and rich.
Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks are pounded into the sauce, giving it body and a creamy texture.
Mustard powder
Adds sharpness and pungency to the sauce.
Salad oil
Emulsifies with the yolks to make the sauce thick and smooth.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets. The fat must be boiling hot before the cutlets go in. Hot fat seals the paste quickly so it crisps and browns instead of absorbing grease and turning soggy, and the filling heats through without the pastry burning.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, ham, clove, pepper, nutmeg, butter, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, ham, clove, pepper, nutmeg, butter, egg. 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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