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Italian Mutton Cutlets

Italian mutton cutlets coated in breadcrumbs and herbs, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Italian Mutton Cutlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Cut the mutton into nicely-shaped cutlets and flatten them, trimming off excess fat.

  2. Dip the cutlets in clarified butter, then in the beaten egg yolk.

Coat and fry

  1. Mix bread crumbs, herbs, parsley, shallot, lemon peel, and seasoning together, then cover the cutlets with the mixture.

  2. Melt some butter in a frying pan and fry the cutlets until golden brown.

  3. Remove the cutlets and keep them warm.

  4. Dredge flour into the pan, adding more butter if necessary.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton neck
Forms the main body of the cutlets, providing the meat that is cooked and served.
Egg yolk
Binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the cutlets.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.
Clarified butter
Adds fat for frying and helps the coating brown evenly.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices and fat into a simple gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the coated cutlets. The coating needs enough butter over moderate heat to turn golden brown without burning. Too little fat or too much heat leaves the crumbs scorched or pale and the mutton underdone inside.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, egg, bread, parsley, lemon, pepper):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, egg, bread, parsley, lemon, pepper. 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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