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Mutton Steaks with French Beans

Mutton steaks served over French beans cooked with butter, pepper, salt, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Mutton Steaks with French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Drain water from dressed French beans.

  2. Simmer the beans with pepper, salt, and a good piece of butter.

  3. A few minutes before serving, add the beaten yolks of two eggs and shake the pan over the fire, but do not let them boil.

Cook and serve the steaks

  1. Meanwhile, trim mutton steaks, season with pepper, salt, and a few crumbs, and boil or fry them.

  2. Serve the steaks on the French beans.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

186Calories
7 gProtein
17 gFat
2 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed. 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. See the original page.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  3. Egg + peppertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Egg and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Eggs
Beaten yolks thicken the butter and bean liquid into a light, creamy coating.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the beans a smooth, glossy coating.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently but curdle and turn grainy if they boil. Keeping the pan over the heat only long enough to warm and shake them keeps the coating smooth.

“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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