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Lamb Chops, Maltaise Sauce

Lamb chops sautéed with butter and sweet oil, served with Maltaise sauce and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lamb Chops, Maltaise Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut and flatten the lamb chops.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. In a skillet, heat butter and sweet oil.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the chops quickly until light brown on both sides.

  2. Drain the fat and arrange the chops in a circle on a plate.

  3. Fry slices of bread in butter and alternate them with the chops.

  4. Pour Maltaise sauce in the center and serve.

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

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

  2. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb chops
Provide the main meat, which browns quickly in hot fat to develop savory flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor and helps the chops and bread brown in the pan.
Sweet oil
Raises the cooking fat's heat tolerance so the chops can sear without the butter burning.
Bread slices
Fried in butter to add golden browning, crisp texture and a toasty flavor beside the chops.
Maltaise sauce
Adds a rich, citrus-tinged sauce that moistens the chops and carries the dish's flavor.

The step that matters

Fry the chops quickly until light brown on both sides. High heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, which builds flavor. Overcooking dries the lean meat, so brown them fast and then stop.

“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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