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Mutton Cutlets, with Spanish Sauce

Mutton cutlets served with a sauce of mushrooms, onion, parsley, and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 Cutlets, with Spanish Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Trim the cutlets like French chops and split each chop in two without separating the meat from the bone.

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, cook the butter and onion together for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the mushrooms, parsley, salt, and pepper; cook for another 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the flour, then add the water or stock and cook for 3 minutes.

  4. Let the filling cool, then spread it inside the chops and press them lightly together.

Cook and serve

  1. Broil the chops for 8 minutes over a clear fire.

  2. Arrange on a warm platter and serve.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  4. Mushroom + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Provide the meat that is trimmed, stuffed and broiled as the main dish.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savory, earthy flavor to the filling as they cook.
Onion
Softens in butter to add sweetness and aroma to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so the filling holds together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and carries the onion's flavor into the filling.

The step that matters

Let the filling cool before spreading it into the chops. A hot, loose filling can make the chops soft and slippery and may leak out during broiling. Cooling lets the flour-thickened mixture firm up so it stays inside when the chops are pressed together.

Swap the onion

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

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

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