Name: Mutton Cutlets , Broiled
Ingredients: 6 mutton cutlets, ½ inch thick; Coarse sea salt; Butter; ½ pint of sauce (Mushroom, White, Brown, Chestnut, Soubise, Truffle, Celery, or au Parmesan)

Why it works: Butter and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets , Broiled

Ingredients

6 mutton cutlets, ½ inch thick
Coarse sea salt
Butter
½ pint of sauce (Mushroom, White, Brown, Chestnut, Soubise, Truffle, Celery, or au Parmesan)

Directions

Prepare

Cut six mutton cutlets from a neck of mutton, each ½ inch thick.
Flatten the cutlets with a rolling pin.

Cook and serve

Broil the cutlets over a clear fire for about six minutes.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and smear with butter.
Arrange in a very hot serving dish.
Pour the sauce of your choice in the center.

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.

Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,781 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Mutton + saucetop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,087 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (soapy, waxy).

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

Mutton cutlets: Provide the main meat, which browns and firms up under direct heat.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the surface brown during broiling.
Sauce: Adds moisture and flavour to the cutlets served alongside it.

The step that matters

Broil over a clear fire. Flattening to an even thickness helps the cutlets cook through at the same rate. Broiling over a clear, hot fire without flare-ups sears the outside while keeping the inside juicy. A timer alone is not enough, so check for browning and doneness.

“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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Mutton Cutlets , Broiled