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Lamb Cutlets and Asparagus Peas

Lamb cutlets served with small pieces of boiled asparagus, flavored with butter, pepper, salt, sugar, and white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and asparagus work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 207 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lamb Cutlets and Asparagus Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the lamb cutlets as per your preferred method.

  2. Cut the green part of the asparagus into small pieces resembling peas.

  3. Boil the asparagus pieces carefully until tender.

  4. Drain the asparagus thoroughly to remove all moisture.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, add the butter, pepper, salt, sugar, and white sauce.

  2. Stir gently over low heat until the butter is melted.

Serve

  1. Garnish the lamb cutlets with the asparagus peas and serve.

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. Lamb + asparagustop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Asparagus + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,968 recipes

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

  3. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they 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

Lamb cutlets
The main protein, which is the centre of the dish.
Asparagus
Provides a tender, green vegetable component cut into pea-sized pieces.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the warm sauce.
White sauce
Adds body and creaminess to the buttery mixture.

The step that matters

Drain the asparagus thoroughly. Leftover water from boiling dilutes the butter and white sauce and can make the mixture thin and watery rather than glossy and coating.

Swap the asparagus

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, pepper, sugar, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Mustardfits about as well
  4. Asparagusthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, pepper, sugar, sauce. 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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