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Mutton Cutlets, with Cucumber

Mutton cutlets coated in butter and breadcrumbs, fried, served with boiled cucumber pieces in a sauce made from the cutlet trimmings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets, with Cucumber

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Trim the mutton cutlets nicely.

  2. In a bowl, mix chopped parsley and shallot with melted butter. Dip the cutlets in the butter mixture, then coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the cutlets in a frying pan until they are light brown.

Prepare the cucumbers

  1. Prepare the cucumbers by cutting them into quarters and removing the seeds. Cut the cucumbers into oval shapes about 1 inch long.

  2. Boil the cucumber pieces in equal parts vinegar and water until tender.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Make a sauce with the trimmings of the cutlets, minced shallot, and herbs. Add the hot cucumbers to the sauce and heat through.

  2. Serve the cucumbers in the center of the dish, arrange the cutlets around them, and pour the sauce over.

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

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

  2. Shallot + cucumbertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together264 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Parsley + cucumbertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Cucumber + vinegartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Provide the main meat; frying browns the coated surface while the interior stays tender.
Melted butter
Carries the parsley and shallot and helps the bread crumbs adhere and brown in the pan.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating on the cutlets when fried.
Cucumbers
Become tender when boiled, giving a mild, soft vegetable element to the dish.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the cooking liquid and cucumbers a sharp, tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling the cucumbers until tender. Cucumbers are mostly water and soften quickly, so overcooking makes them limp and watery. Stop as soon as they are tender, since they will be heated again in the sauce.

Swap the cucumber

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, parsley, shallot, bread, vinegar):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, parsley, shallot, bread, vinegar. 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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