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Mutton Chops

Mutton chops grilled under a broiler, served with butter, salt, pepper, and currant jelly sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Mutton Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim excess fat from the mutton chops and grease a broiler with some mutton fat.

Broil

  1. Place the chops on the broiler under the gas flame, ensuring they are not in direct contact with the flame.

  2. Turn the chops every 10 seconds for the first 5 minutes until well seared.

  3. Continue to turn occasionally until cooked through, about 15 minutes total.

Serve

  1. Arrange the chops on a hot serving platter, spread with soft butter, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  2. Serve with currant jelly sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

  4. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

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 sears on the outside while cooking through inside.
Soft butter
Adds richness and moisture to the hot chops once they are plated.
Currant jelly sauce
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the rich, fatty mutton.

The step that matters

Turning the chops every 10 seconds for the first 5 minutes. Frequent turning over direct heat builds an even sear without burning the surface. Letting one side sit too long can scorch it before the interior cooks through.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, pepper, sauce. 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.

More mutton chops recipes

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