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Mutton Cutlets

Mutton cutlets coated with mushrooms, parsley, and breadcrumbs, then fried and served with mashed potatoes or peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Divide the mutton into cutlets and trim them neatly.

  2. Dip each cutlet in egg.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat each cutlet with a mixture of mushrooms, parsley, and bread crumbs.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Fry in boiling fat for 5 to 6 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the cutlets in a border of mashed potatoes or peas.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Provides the meat for the cutlets, which cook to tenderness and flavour when fried.
Egg
Binds the coating so the bread crumbs and mushroom mixture stick to each cutlet.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust when fried in hot fat.
Minced mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour to the coating mixture.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling fat for 5 to 6 minutes. The fat must be hot enough to brown the crumb quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs grease and turns soggy before the meat cooks through.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, egg, mushroom, bread, pepper. 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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