Skip to main content
Main

Mutton Cutlets a LA Maintenon

Mutton cutlets seasoned with butter, herbs, and lemon, breaded and broiled, served with poivrade sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets a LA Maintenon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Remove the under bone from the loin of mutton and cut it into chops.

  2. Beat the chops and trim them neatly.

  3. Add butter, parsley, thyme, eschalots, pepper, salt, mace, and lemon juice to the chops.

Cook and coat

  1. Cook the chops until nearly done, then place them on a dish and pour the cooking liquid over them.

  2. Once nearly cool, coat the chops in breadcrumbs and wrap them in oiled white paper.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil the wrapped chops over a slow fire.

  2. Serve with hot poivrade sauce in a boat.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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, with its meat cooking to tenderness in the chops.
Fresh butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and keeping the meat moist as it cooks.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the outside of the chops.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich mutton and butter.

The step that matters

Cooking the chops until nearly done. Cooking only until nearly done leaves room for carry-over heat and later broiling, so the meat stays juicy rather than dry and tough.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipesMutton SoupMutton Soup56 recipes