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Mutton Cutlets

Mutton cutlets are breaded and fried mutton pieces served with mashed potatoes, macaroni, celery, and brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Divide the mutton into cutlets and trim off all the fat.

  2. Chop the bones to the same length.

  3. Scrape the bones until bare.

  4. Dust the cutlets with flour.

  5. Dip the cutlets in beaten egg.

  6. Coat the cutlets with seasoned breadcrumbs.

  7. Press the breadcrumbs lightly onto the cutlets.

  8. Let the cutlets stand for 20 minutes.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets until golden brown.

  2. Serve the cutlets on a bed of mashed potatoes.

  3. Fill the center of the bed with macaroni and celery.

  4. Pour brown gravy around the dish.

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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,331 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Provides the meat for the cutlets, and the bones are left on as the cutlet handle.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumb coating sticks to the cutlets.
Fine dry breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when the cutlets are fried.
Flour
Dries the meat surface so the egg and breadcrumbs adhere evenly.
Cooked macaroni
Adds bulk and soft starch to the side dish beside the cutlets.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets until golden brown. Frying over moderate heat browns the breadcrumb coating through the Maillard reaction while the meat cooks through. Too little heat leaves the coating pale and greasy, and too much burns it before the meat is cooked.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, flour, egg, pepper, nutmeg, celery):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, flour, egg, pepper, nutmeg, celery. 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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