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Mutton-collops

Mutton collops are thin slices of mutton sautéed with herbs, butter, flour, gravy, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mutton-collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut very thin slices from a leg or the chump end of a loin of mutton.

  2. Sprinkle the slices with salt, pepper, pounded mace, minced savoury herbs, and minced shallots.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the slices in butter until browned.

  2. Stir in the flour, then add the gravy and lemon juice.

  3. Simmer gently for about 5 to 7 minutes and serve immediately.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Mutton
Provides the meat that is browned and simmered until tender in the sauce.
Butter
Fat that browns the slices and adds richness to the dish.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so the sauce clings to the slices.
Gravy
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that the meat simmers in.
Shallots
Add a mild savoury onion flavour that infuses the meat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the slices in butter until browned. Browning through the Maillard reaction builds deep savoury flavour on the surface of the meat. Pale, under-browned slices will taste flat once simmered, so the pan should be hot enough to brown rather than steam them.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, shallot, butter, flour, 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.

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