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Mutton Cutlets with Potatoes

Mutton cutlets served with fried potatoes and a reduced sauce of cullis and ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets with Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mutton

  1. Cut the loin of mutton into steaks.

  2. Beat the steaks with a chopper.

  3. Trim the steaks neatly.

  4. Season the steaks with sweet herbs, shallots, pepper, salt, and lemon juice.

  5. Cook the steaks until nearly done.

  6. Set the steaks aside to cool.

Coat and fry the steaks

  1. Dip the cooled steaks in beaten egg.

  2. Coat the steaks with breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry the coated steaks in boiling lard until light brown.

Plate and make the sauce

  1. Arrange the steaks in a dish.

  2. Leave a space in the center of the dish.

  3. Peel and scoop or cut the potatoes into shapes.

  4. Fry the potatoes until lightly colored.

  5. Fill the center of the dish with the fried potatoes.

  6. Add cullis and ketchup to the sauce from the steaks.

  7. Strain the sauce.

  8. Reduce the sauce until almost a glaze.

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. Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Shallot + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Loin of mutton
Forms the main body of the dish as the meat cut into steaks.
Egg
Binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the steaks while frying.
Breadcrumbs
Forms a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.
Potatoes
Provide a starchy side that fries to a light golden color.
Shallots
Add a mild aromatic sharpness to the seasoning on the steaks.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and gives the coating a rich, browned surface.

The step that matters

Fry the coated steaks in boiling lard until light brown. The lard must be hot enough to crisp the breadcrumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy, and the steaks may not brown evenly.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, shallot, pepper, lemon, egg, sauce, ketchup):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, shallot, pepper, lemon, egg, sauce, ketchup. 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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