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Mutton Cutlets a LA Provencale

Mutton cutlets served with a Provencal sauce of mushrooms, shallot, onion, garlic, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets a LA Provencale

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Trim the mutton cutlets and coat them with egg and bread crumbs.

  2. Fry the cutlets in butter until golden brown.

  3. Dish the cutlets on a border of mashed potatoes.

Make the topping

  1. In a sauté pan, combine the soubise sauce, mushrooms, shallot, onion, garlic, pepper, and salt.

  2. Cook for 10 minutes, then remove the garlic.

  3. Stir in the egg yolks and parsley, cooking until well combined.

  4. Spread the mixture on one side of each cutlet and sprinkle with brown bread crumbs and Parmesan.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the cutlets in a 350°F (175°C) oven to heat through.

  2. Serve with brown sauce or demi-glace.

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. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton
Forms the meat base; its fat and connective tissue keep the cutlets moist when cooked.
Egg yolks
Bind the soubise mixture into a smooth, cohesive topping as they set gently with heat.
Brown bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying and baking.
White soubise sauce
Provides a creamy, onion-based moisture that keeps the topping soft and rich.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the topping brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Frying the coated cutlets until golden brown. Egg and crumb coatings brown through Maillard reactions at high surface heat. Too little heat leaves them pale and greasy, while too much scorches the crumbs before the meat is heated through.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, sauce, mushroom, shallot, onion, garlic, parsley):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cuminfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sauce, mushroom, shallot, onion, garlic, parsley. 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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