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Mutton or Lamb Chops Au Feu

Broiled mutton or lamb chops seasoned with onion, parsley, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 or Lamb Chops Au Feu

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the chops with oil, onion, and parsley.

  2. Let them soak for 2 hours.

  3. Season the chops with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the chops over a sharp fire until cooked, about 6 minutes.

  2. Serve immediately.

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. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  5. Mutton + oniontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,531 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton or lamb chops
Provide the meat that is cooked and served as the main dish.
Onion
Adds aroma and flavor to the meat while it soaks.
Parsley
Adds fresh aroma and flavor to the meat while it soaks.
Oil
Coats the chops, helping them brown and keeping the surface from drying under heat.

The step that matters

Broil the chops over a sharp fire until cooked. A very hot fire browns the outside quickly while the inside cooks through. Too little heat leaves the chops grey and dry, and too long a cook toughens the meat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, parsley, 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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