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Minced Mutton Cutlets, with Tomato Sauce

Minced mutton cutlets served with an egg yolk and vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,399 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Minced Mutton Cutlets, with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the cold mutton as fine as possible and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Pound the garlic to a paste and mix it with the mutton.

  3. Add dissolved butter and mutton gravy to the mixture.

  4. Mix well and let stand in a cool place for 1 hour.

Make the paste

  1. Beat the egg yolk with cold water.

  2. Mix the beaten yolk into the flour to form a firm paste.

  3. Roll out the paste thinly.

Shape the cutlets

  1. Cut the paste into squares.

  2. Cut each square into two triangles.

  3. Divide the meat mixture into six parts.

  4. Place one part of the meat mixture in each triangle of paste.

  5. Fold the paste over the meat.

  6. Trim to form cutlets.

  7. Press the edges to seal.

Fry and make the sauce

  1. Heat a stewpan with boiling fat.

  2. Fry the cutlets until pale brown, about 12 minutes.

  3. Drain the cutlets on a sieve for 3 minutes before serving.

  4. Boil the eggs for 10 minutes.

  5. Pound the yolks to powder.

  6. Add a well-beaten yolk, salt, mustard, and salad oil gradually while stirring.

  7. Add tarragon vinegar and regular vinegar drop by drop while stirring continuously.

  8. Add chopped chives.

  9. Serve the sauce on a cold dish with the hot cutlets around it.

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 + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + tarragontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together884 recipes

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

  5. Garlic + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold mutton
Forms the main filling and provides the savoury flavour of the cutlets.
Dried flour
Forms the firm paste that encloses the filling and crisps when fried.
Egg yolk
Binds the flour into a workable paste and adds richness to the dough.
Dissolved butter
Adds fat and moisture to the meat filling, keeping it tender and rich.
Mutton gravy
Adds moisture and meaty flavour to the filling.
Salad oil
Adds fat to the sauce, helping it emulsify into a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Sealing the paste edges. Edges that are not pressed firmly can open during frying, letting the filling leak into the hot fat. Sealing traps the moisture of the meat inside the pastry.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, butter, egg, flour, tarragon, vinegar):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, butter, egg, flour, tarragon, vinegar. 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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