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Cutlets and Green Peas

Lamb cutlets served with boiled green peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 896 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cutlets and Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Cut the cutlets from the best end of the neck.

  2. Trim them neatly by removing the skin and excess fat.

  3. Scrape the upper end of the bone clean.

Coat the cutlets

  1. Brush each cutlet with beaten egg yolk.

  2. Sprinkle seasoned bread crumbs on each cutlet.

  3. Dip the cutlets in clarified butter.

  4. Sprinkle more crumbs on top.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in a pan with butter, lard, or dripping until golden brown.

  2. Serve with boiled green peas arranged in a pyramid in the center of 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. Lamb + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together896 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Pepper + beeftop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb neck cutlets
Provide the main meat, which becomes tender and juicy when cooked through.
Eggs
Egg yolk brushed on helps the bread crumbs adhere to each cutlet.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that protects the meat during frying.
Beef or mutton dripping, or lard
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Frying until golden brown. Frying over steady heat browns the crumb coating through the Maillard reaction while the meat cooks inside. Too high a heat burns the crumbs before the lamb is done, and too low a heat leaves the coating greasy and pale.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, egg, bread, pepper, beef):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Rosemaryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, egg, bread, pepper, beef. 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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