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Mutton Cutlets Braised

Braised mutton cutlets wrapped in bacon, simmered with onion, cloves, parsley, and stock, served with mashed potatoes and onion sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets Braised

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the mutton cutlets by inserting 5 pieces of fat bacon through the lean of each cutlet.

  2. Cover the bottom of a stewpan with slices of fat bacon and lay the cutlets on top.

Braise and press

  1. Pour stock over the cutlets and add the onion, cloves, and parsley.

  2. Cover and simmer over low heat for 2 hours until tender.

  3. Transfer the cutlets to an oval dish with a little stock and place a dish on top with an 8-pound weight.

  4. Once cooled, trim the cutlets nicely and warm them with their stock.

Serve

  1. Serve with mashed potatoes and onion sauce.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. Onion + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,901 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender through slow simmering in stock.
Fat bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that bastes the meat and enriches the stock as it renders.
Stock
Provides moisture for the braise and carries flavour into the meat and sauce.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the braising liquid.

The step that matters

Simmering over low heat. Gentle, low heat lets the tough connective tissue in the mutton break down slowly into tender meat. Boiling hard can toughen the proteins and dry the cutlets before they become tender.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, parsley, potato, sauce):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, parsley, potato, sauce. 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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