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Stewed Mutton Cutlets

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lettuce and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,409 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Mutton Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Remove all fat and bone from the cutlets, then beat them to tenderize.

  2. Season the cutlets with pepper, coarse sea salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Place the cutlets in a circular tin kettle with bits of fresh butter rolled in flour.

  4. Set the kettle on a trivet inside a flat-bottomed pot or stew-pan.

  5. Pour boiling water around the kettle, ensuring it doesn't reach the top.

  6. Cover the pot and simmer on a slow fire for two hours.

  7. Remove the meat and place it on a bed of lettuce, cucumbers, onions, and turnips.

  8. Add a few blades of mace, a pinch of coarse sea salt, and more butter rolled in flour.

  9. Return the kettle to boiling water, keeping the lid tight, and simmer for another two hours.

  10. Serve the meat on the vegetables, surrounded by boiled green peas.

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. Lettuce + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,409 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Lettuce + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,562 recipes

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

  4. Cucumber + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,050 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, nutmeg, butter, flour, lettuce, cucumber):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, nutmeg, butter, flour, lettuce, cucumber. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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