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Fried Mutton or Lamb Chops, Plain

Fried mutton or lamb chops served plain with pepper, salt, butter, and optional gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fried Mutton or Lamb Chops, Plain

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the mutton or lamb chops as you would for broiling.

  2. Heat the butter or drippings in a saucepan over medium heat.

Cook the chops

  1. Fry the chops until nicely browned, turning them to sear both sides.

  2. Once cooked, remove the chops to a hot platter.

  3. Sprinkle with pepper, coarse sea salt, and bits of butter, or use maitre d'hotel butter.

  4. Place the platter in the oven for a moment to keep warm.

Make the gravy

  1. To make gravy, add hot water or stock to the saucepan, thicken with browned flour, and add your chosen flavoring.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

Lamb chops (in the method)
Provide the meat that is browned and served as the main dish.
Butter or drippings
Fat for frying the chops, adding browning and rich flavor to the surface.
Browned flour
Thickens the pan liquid into a gravy with a toasted, nutty flavor.

The step that matters

Frying the chops until nicely browned. Browning happens through the Maillard reaction, which needs a hot, dry surface and enough fat. Crowding the pan or leaving the heat too low steams the meat instead, leaving it grey and bland.

“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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