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Mutton Cutlets in the Portuguese Way

Mutton cutlets prepared with shallots, parsley, bay leaves, and force‑meat, then broiled and served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets in the Portuguese Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the mutton chops.

  2. Half fry them with sliced shallot or onion, chopped parsley, and bay leaves.

  3. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Wrap and cook

  1. Lay a piece of force‑meat on white paper, place the chop on it, and twist the paper, leaving a hole for the bone ends.

  2. Broil the wrapped chops over a gentle fire.

Serve

  1. Serve with sauce or a little gravy.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  4. Mutton + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together936 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together484 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
Provide the main meat, which is browned and cooked through within the wrapping.
Force-meat
Forms a seasoned layer around the chop that helps hold the wrapping in shape while cooking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the surface brown during frying.

The step that matters

Broil the wrapped chops over a gentle fire. A gentle heat lets the meat cook through and the force-meat set without scorching the paper or drying the chop. Too much heat burns the wrapping before the inside is done.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, parsley, pepper, meat, 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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