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To Fry Mutton Cutlets

Fried mutton cutlets coated in breadcrumbs and egg, pan‑fried in clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

To Fry Mutton Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Prepare the mutton by sawing off the end of the rib-bone, leaving the cutlet-bone 3 inches long.

  2. Remove the chine-bone from the back of the cutlets.

  3. Joint each cutlet with a chopper and cut close to the bone.

  4. Wet a cutlet-bat and beat each cutlet to about ½ inch thick.

  5. Trim the cutlets, leaving about ½ inch of the rib-bone bare.

  6. Set aside the trimmings for later use.

Bread and season

  1. Rub bread-crumbs through a wire sieve onto a piece of paper.

  2. Beat the egg on a plate with a knife.

  3. Season the cutlets with salt and pepper on both sides.

  4. Dip the cutlets in the egg, coating them well.

  5. Cover the cutlets with bread-crumbs, lifting them by the bare bone.

Fry

  1. In a sauté pan, melt 1 ounce of clarified butter or lard.

  2. Place the cutlets in the pan with the bones facing the center.

  3. Pour 2 more ounces of melted clarified butter over the cutlets.

  4. Cook on a very high heat for about 7 minutes, turning as needed.

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

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

  2. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the rich meat flavour being cooked.
Bread-crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the bread-crumbs stick to the cutlets.
Clarified butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Cook on a very high heat for about 7 minutes. Strong heat quickly sets the egg and crumb coating and browns it before the thin cutlets overcook. Too low a heat lets the coating soak up fat and turn greasy while the meat dries out.

“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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