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Mutton Cutlets Stewed in Their Own Gravy

A stew of mutton cutlets simmered in their own gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets Stewed in Their Own Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim all fat from the mutton cutlets and dip them in cold water.

  2. Dredge both sides of the cutlets with black pepper and flour.

  3. Rinse a thick iron saucepan with spring water, leaving 3 to 4 tablespoons in it.

Stew

  1. Arrange the cutlets in a single layer in the saucepan over a very gentle fire.

  2. Add a little coarse sea salt when the cutlets begin to stew.

  3. Let the cutlets simmer gently for 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes.

  4. Turn the cutlets halfway through cooking.

  5. If needed, add 2 to 3 tablespoons of water or gravy to maintain moisture.

Serve

  1. Serve the cutlets with the gravy, skimming off any excess fat.

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. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mutton + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Provide the meat that becomes tender during slow, gentle simmering.
Flour
Coats the cutlets and thickens the cooking liquid into a gravy.
Black pepper
Adds a sharp, aromatic warmth to the coated surface of the meat.

The step that matters

Keep the fire very gentle and the liquid topped up. Gentle heat lets connective tissue in the mutton break down slowly without toughening the muscle fibres. Vigorous boiling would tighten the meat and could dry the cutlets, so a small amount of water or gravy is added to maintain moisture.

“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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