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Cotelettes a LA Soubise

Mutton cutlets cooked with a buttery onion sauce called soubise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,222 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

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

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Trim the mutton cutlets carefully.

  2. Melt ½ ounce of butter in an earthenware or tin dish. Place the cutlets in the dish.

  3. Sprinkle the cutlets with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  4. Cover the cutlets with buttered paper.

Cook the cutlets

  1. Cook the cutlets in the oven at 400°F (200°C) or over a small fire. If using a small fire, turn the cutlets after 10 minutes.

  2. Cook the cutlets for another 10 minutes over the small fire.

  3. Replace the buttered paper on the cutlets.

Make the soubise sauce

  1. Peel the onions and finely chop them.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the onions with 1 ounce of butter. Cover the saucepan with a lid and shake it occasionally to prevent burning.

  3. Keep the onions white.

  4. Add salt and white pepper to the onions.

  5. Add 2 teaspoons of flour to the onions, stirring continuously.

  6. Slowly pour in ½ cup of hot milk with a piece of sugar.

  7. Simmer the sauce for 4 minutes.

  8. Strain the sauce through a sieve.

  9. Return the sauce to the saucepan to heat it up.

Serve

  1. Arrange the cutlets in a circle or standing up on a plate.

  2. Add a spoonful of stock or water to the plate.

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.

  1. Butter + milktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together68,463 recipes

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

  4. Mutton + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,442 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Mutton + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,781 recipes

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

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Form the main body of the dish and brown and firm up during cooking.
Onions
Provide the bulk and sweet, mellow flavour of the soubise sauce as they soften in butter.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour and helps the onions cook gently without browning.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the sauce, giving it body and a mild richness.

The step that matters

Shake the saucepan occasionally to prevent burning. Onions cooked in butter can scorch on the bottom before they soften. Keeping them moving and covered at low heat lets them cook gently and stay pale, which keeps the sauce smooth and mild.

Flavor stand-ins for the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  2. Cardamombetter flavor fit
  3. Gingerbetter flavor fit
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, pepper, onion, flour, milk, sugar. 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.

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