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Fried Mutton Chops

A pan‑fried dish of mutton chops seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Fried Mutton Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pan

  1. Heat a frying pan over medium-high heat until hot.

  2. Trim excess fat from the chops and place them in the hot pan.

Cook the chops

  1. Brown the chops quickly on both sides.

  2. If there is excessive fat, cut it off and reserve it for drippings.

  3. Cook the chops to your desired doneness, about 12 minutes for medium rare.

Season and serve

  1. Season with salt, pepper, and a little butter before serving hot.

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. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
Main protein; their fat and connective tissue add flavour and juiciness as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and a light finishing sheen to the cooked chops.

The step that matters

Brown the chops quickly on both sides. Searing over high heat drives the Maillard reaction, giving browned flavour and colour. Overcrowding or a cool pan steams the meat instead, so it turns grey and loses that savoury 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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