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Mutton Chops

Mutton chops coated in beaten eggs and bread crumbs, fried with butter, served with onion and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Trim the mutton chops and beat them well.

  2. Chop the meat into mince, ensuring not to separate it from the bone.

  3. Sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides of the chops.

  4. Dip the chops in beaten eggs, then roll them in bread crumbs.

Fry the chops

  1. Melt 2 ounces of butter in a frying pan.

  2. Add the chops and fry slowly until firm; do not turn them until then.

  3. Flavor with onion and parsley.

Make the browned flour

  1. In a separate pan, brown 1 tablespoon of flour in 1 ounce of butter.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Mutton chops
The main protein, which firms and cooks through as it fries.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumbs to the meat so the coating holds during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating on the outside of the chops.
Butter
Carries heat for frying and adds richness and browning flavor.
Flour
Browns in butter to add color, nutty flavor and body.

The step that matters

Fry slowly and leave the chops unturned until firm. The egg and crumb coating needs time to set and the meat needs to firm up. Turning too early can tear the coating off and make the chops stick to the pan.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, bread, egg, butter, flour, parsley. 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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