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Mutton Cutlets, Braised

Braised mutton cutlets simmered with ham, onion, carrot, stock, and a sauce of arrowroot, mushroom ketchup, and red currant jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets, Braised

Ingredients

Directions

Braise the cutlets

  1. Trim the mutton cutlets.

  2. In a stewpan, fry the diced ham in butter for 3 to 4 minutes.

  3. Add the cutlets, chopped onion, chopped carrot, salt, pepper, parsley, thyme, and peppercorns.

  4. Pour in the stock and stew gently for 1 hour.

Make the sauce

  1. Remove ½ pint of stock to a fresh saucepan.

  2. Mix the arrowroot with mushroom ketchup and stir into the boiling stock.

  3. Simmer until thickened, then add the red currant jelly and stir until melted.

Serve

  1. Arrange the cutlets on a hot dish, pour the sauce over, and serve.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + thymetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Provide the meat that becomes tender during long, gentle stewing.
Ham
Fried in butter first, adding savoury, salty flavour to the stock.
Butter
Fat that is used to fry the ham and add richness.
Arrowroot
Thickens the stock into a glossy sauce without making it cloudy.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a fruity note that balances the savoury sauce.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury, umami flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the arrowroot to boiling stock. Arrowroot must be mixed smoothly with the ketchup first, then stirred into boiling stock. Adding it dry or unmixed causes lumps, and it thickens best when simmered just until the sauce turns glossy rather than boiled for long.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, ham, butter, pepper, parsley, thyme):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, ham, butter, pepper, parsley, thyme. 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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