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Mutton Cutlets À LA Onion

Mutton cutlets made with minced onion, bacon scraps, truffles, capers, herbs, gravy, and sherry, then fried and served with reserved gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 211 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets À LA Onion

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the mutton

  1. Combine mutton choplets, bacon scraps, minced onion, truffles, capers, herbs, pepper, salt, nutmeg, gravy, and sherry in a stew-pan.

  2. Gently stew the mixture until the choplets are cooked through.

  3. Remove the choplets.

  4. Place the choplets on a large dish, covering with another dish and a weight until cool.

  5. Strain the gravy.

  6. Remove fat from the gravy.

  7. Set aside the strained gravy.

Make the mince

  1. Fry the minced onion until golden brown.

  2. Add capers, truffles, pepper, salt, and parsley to the fried onion.

  3. Moisten the mixture with a little gravy.

  4. Thicken the mixture with beaten eggs.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

Wrap and serve

  1. Grease papers for the cutlets.

  2. Spread the cold mince over the greased papers.

  3. Fold the papers carefully around the mince.

  4. Broil the cutlets on a grill or heat in the oven until thoroughly warmed.

  5. Serve the cutlets in their papers with the reserved gravy on the side.

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. Capers + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Onion + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Capers + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,088 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 choplets
Form the main body of the cutlets and supply the savoury meaty flavour.
Bacon scraps
Add fat and savoury, smoky flavour to the stewed mutton.
Onion
Browning in the pan develops sweetness and deeper flavour in the mince.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the mince together so the cutlets hold their shape.
Gravy
Moistens the mince and provides the sauce served alongside the cutlets.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the rich meat.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture with beaten eggs.. Egg proteins set when heated and bind the mince, so the cutlets hold together. Too much egg or too much liquid leaves the mince loose and wet, and it may fail to hold its shape when wrapped and warmed.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, truffle, capers, sherry, pepper, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, truffle, capers, sherry, pepper, nutmeg, egg. 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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