Name: Cutlets a LA Bretonne
Ingredients: Best end of a neck of mutton; ½ cup Bechamel sauce; ½ pint Haricot beans, well cooked; 4 onions, well cooked; 1 ounce butter; pepper; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 5,241 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Also mentioned in the method: bread

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

Trim the cutlets.
Bread-crumb the cutlets.
Fry the cutlets.

Make the bean purée

In a stewpan, combine the haricots and onions with the butter; season and stir over the heat until hot.
Pass the mixture through a fine sieve, then add the Béchamel sauce.

Plate and serve

Plate the cutlets and place the bean and onion puree in the center, pouring a little thin brown sauce around.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Beans + oniontop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together5,241 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together68,463 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mutton + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together5,442 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Beans + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together4,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mutton + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together3,781 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Best end of a neck of mutton: Provides the main meat, cooked through by frying after breadcrumbing.
Bechamel sauce: Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the bean and onion mixture.
Haricot beans: Form the bulk of the purée, giving it body and a soft, earthy texture.
Onions: Add sweetness and aroma to the purée once cooked and sieved.
Butter: Adds fat and rich flavour as the purée is heated.

The step that matters

Passing the bean and onion mixture through a fine sieve. Sieving removes skins and fibres from the cooked beans and onions, producing a smooth purée. Skipping or rushing this leaves a grainy texture that does not suit the delicate cutlet garnish.

Flavor stand-ins for the beans

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

Beansthe original
Peasabout as good a flavor fit
Lima beansabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sauce, onion, butter, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.