Skip to main content
Main

Mutton Cutlets Aux Concombres

Mutton cutlets coated in parsley, shallot, butter and breadcrumbs, served with boiled cucumbers in a sauce of cutlet trimmings, shallot, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 Aux Concombres

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Cut the neck of mutton into chops and trim them nicely.

  2. Mix parsley and shallot in melted butter.

  3. Dip the chops in this mixture.

  4. Coat the chops with bread crumbs.

  5. Fry the chops in a pan until they are a fine light brown.

Prepare the cucumbers

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

  2. Boil the cucumbers in half vinegar and half water until tender.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Make a sauce with the trimmings of the cutlets, minced shallot, and herbs.

  2. Add the cucumbers to the sauce and heat through.

  3. Serve the cucumbers in the center of the dish with the cutlets arranged 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 + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton neck
Forms the chops, providing the meat that is the main component of the dish.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown coating on the chops when fried.
Melted butter
Carries the parsley and shallot onto the chops and helps the coating brown in the pan.
Cucumbers
Become tender when boiled in vinegar and water, giving a soft, tangy vegetable accompaniment.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the cucumbers as they cook, giving a sharp tang.

The step that matters

Frying the coated chops. The chops should reach a fine light brown, not dark. Breadcrumbs brown quickly from the surface sugars and proteins, so too high a heat can scorch the coating before the meat is cooked through.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

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

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes