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Larded Mutton Chops

Mutton chops larded with fat salt pork, simmered in gravy with mushrooms, finished with currant jelly and lemon garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,875 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol, which smells allspice, anise. The science ↓

Larded Mutton Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Trim off all fat and skin from the mutton chops, leaving a bare piece of bone at the end of each.

  2. Lard the chops with fat salt pork, passing the lardons through the meat.

Braise

  1. Place the chops in a saucepan and cover with gravy.

  2. Add the halved mushrooms and cover the saucepan.

  3. Simmer gently until the chops are tender, using cold gravy.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the chops and arrange them on a dish.

  2. Add currant jelly and a little browned flour to the gravy, boil once, and pour over the meat.

  3. Garnish with sliced lemon.

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. Pork + mushroomtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  2. Mutton + porktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,239 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  3. Mutton + mushroomtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together685 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
Form the main meat; slow simmering in gravy makes the meat tender.
Fat salt pork
Lardons add fat inside the lean meat, keeping it moist and adding savoury richness.
Browned flour
Thickens the gravy and adds a toasted, deeper flavour.
Currant jelly
Adds sweetness and a little acidity that balance the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the chops are tender. A gentle simmer lets connective tissue in the mutton break down slowly. Boiling hard toughens the muscle fibres and can leave the meat dry and stringy.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pork, mushroom, flour, lemon):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pork, mushroom, flour, lemon. 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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