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Broiled Lamb Cutlets with Mint Sauce

Broiled lamb cutlets served with a mint, sugar, and vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Mint and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,372 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Broiled Lamb Cutlets with Mint Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Mix the mint, sugar, and vinegar on a platter.

  2. Lay the lamb cutlets on the mixture, dust with pepper, and let stand for 30 minutes.

  3. Turn the cutlets and let them marinate for another 30 minutes.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the cutlets on a buttered double wire gridiron and broil over a hot fire.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the remaining mint, sugar, and vinegar; bring to a boil.

  3. Serve the sauce with the hot cutlets, seasoned with salt, pepper, and 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. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Mint + lambtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together772 recipes

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

  4. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb cutlets
The main protein, which browns and firms up when broiled over high heat.
Fresh mint
Provides the aromatic herbal flavor that defines the sauce.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar, giving the sauce sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and softens the mint's bite.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the cutlets brown lightly on the gridiron.

The step that matters

Broiling the cutlets over a hot fire. High direct heat browns the outside quickly; if the fire is too low or the cutlets stay too long, they dry out before the centre cooks through.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, lamb, pepper, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Peppermintfits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, lamb, pepper, butter. 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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