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Mutton Collops

Thin slices of mutton seasoned and fried, finished with gravy, lemon, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mutton Collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut thin slices from the mutton loin, removing sinews.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and mace.

  3. Sprinkle with parsley, thyme, and shallots.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry in butter until half cooked.

  2. Add gravy, lemon juice, and butter mixed with flour.

  3. Simmer gently for 5 minutes and serve immediately.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton loin
Provides the meat that is cooked tender in a short, gentle simmer.
Butter
Fat for frying that adds richness and helps brown the slices.
Flour
Mixed with butter to thicken the gravy sauce as it simmers.
Gravy
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and savoury flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and sauce.
Shallots
Add a mild onion flavour that perfumes the meat during cooking.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 5 minutes and serve immediately. The meat is only half cooked when it goes into the sauce, so a gentle simmer finishes it without toughening. Boiling hard or overcooking makes thin slices dry and chewy, and the flour-thickened sauce can lump if it is boiled rapidly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, parsley, thyme, shallot, lemon, butter):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, parsley, thyme, shallot, lemon, butter. 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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