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Cotelettes De Mouton a LA Reforms — Mutton Cutlets

Mutton cutlets topped with a creamy onion Bechamel and Parmesan, finished in a buttered pan and oven, served with garlic‑infused tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cotelettes De Mouton a LA Reforms — Mutton Cutlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Trim the mutton chops and sauté them on one side only. Place them under a light press.

Make the onion topping

  1. Slice the onions very finely and cook them gently with butter over moderate heat until soft, without browning.

  2. Add the Bechamel sauce to the onions and bind with the egg yolks. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, then let it cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover the cooked side of the chops with the onion mixture, smooth the surface, and sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese.

  2. Drizzle a few drops of melted butter over each chop, place them in a buttered sauté pan, and heat well on the stove.

  3. Finish cooking the chops in a brisk oven.

Serve

  1. Serve with tomato sauce flavored with a hint of garlic.

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

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

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Mutton chops
Provide the main meat, which is seared on one side and finished gently in the oven.
White onions
Become soft and sweet when cooked slowly, forming a moist, savory topping for the chops.
Bechamel sauce
Adds creamy richness and moisture that binds the onion topping together.
Egg yolks
Thicken the onion and sauce mixture as they set with gentle heat, helping it hold together.
Grated parmesan cheese
Melts and browns on the surface, adding savory flavor and a golden crust.

The step that matters

Cooking the onions without browning. Onions cooked gently until soft become sweet and moist; browning them adds bitterness and a darker color that would clash with the delicate bechamel topping.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, onion, butter, sauce, egg, pepper, parmesan cheese):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, onion, butter, sauce, egg, pepper, parmesan cheese. 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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