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Lamb Cutlets with Asparagus Tips

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Lamb Cutlets with Asparagus Tips

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Trim the lamb cutlets and cook them in butter for 4-5 minutes on each side, ensuring they are not overcooked.

  2. Cook the asparagus until tender, drain, and cut off the hard parts. Place the remaining asparagus in a little cream and keep warm.

  3. Prepare a white sauce, cooking it for 6-7 minutes until thickened. Stir in the asparagus.

  4. Spoon the asparagus sauce into the center of a casserole and arrange the cutlets around it, standing upright.

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. Lamb + asparagustop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + asparagustop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,026 recipes

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Asparagusthe original
  3. Onionfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, cream, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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