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Mutton Cutlets, Italian

Italian-style mutton cutlets coated in mushroom and herb crumbs, fried and served with a savory sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets, Italian

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Trim the mutton cutlets into good shape and beat them if uneven.

  2. Remove all excess fat and marinate the cutlets in salad oil and minced herbs for a few minutes.

  3. Dip the cutlets in clarified butter, then in beaten eggs.

  4. Mix chopped mushrooms, bread crumbs, parsley, savory herbs, shallot, lemon peel, and mace in a bowl.

  5. Coat the cutlets with the mixture and fry in butter until light brown.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. In the same pan, brown more butter with flour, then moisten with veal stock.

  2. Add sauce and tarragon vinegar, and cook until thickened.

  3. Keep the cutlets warm, then arrange them in a circle on a plate and pour the sauce around them.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 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

Mutton cutlets
Form the main body of the dish, cooked until tender and browned on the outside.
Eggs
Bind the crumb coating so it adheres to the cutlets during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating around the cutlets when fried.
Clarified butter
Carries flavour and browns the cutlets evenly without burning as quickly as whole butter.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into the sauce base.
Veal stock
Provides the liquid and savoury body of the sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the coated cutlets in butter. If the heat is too high the butter and crumb coating darken before the meat cooks through, and if too low the coating absorbs grease and turns soggy. Steady medium heat gives an even light brown crust.

“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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