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Lamb Chops, with Cucumber Sauce

Lamb chops served with a sautéed cucumber sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lamb Chops, with Cucumber Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Dip the lamb chops in the beaten egg and then coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the chops until nicely browned.

  3. Arrange the chops in a circle on a hot dish.

Cook the cucumber

  1. Peel the cucumber and cut it into dice; sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the cucumber, cover, and cook on moderate heat, shaking frequently.

  3. Steam the cucumber until tender but not broken, about 20 minutes.

  4. Serve the cucumber in the center of the dish with the chops.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Pepper + cucumbertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,991 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lamb + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
The beaten egg helps the bread crumbs adhere to the chops as a coating.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the chops when fried.
Butter
Melted fat carries heat to the cucumber and gives it a rich flavour.
Cucumber
Softens with gentle steaming into a tender, moist side served with the chops.

The step that matters

Steam the cucumber until tender but not broken. Cooking on moderate heat with the lid on and frequent shaking softens the cucumber gently. Too much heat or too long cooking breaks the dice down into mush, while too little leaves it firm.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, egg, bread, pepper, butter):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, egg, bread, pepper, butter. 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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