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Mutton Cutlets a LA Reform

Mutton cutlets coated in bread crumbs, ham, parsley, and chives, then browned and cooked through.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,150 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets a LA Reform

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut six neat cutlets from a neck of mutton.

  2. Mix bread crumbs, chopped ham, chopped parsley, and chopped chives in equal proportions.

Coat and cook

  1. Coat the cutlets with the mixture.

  2. Cook the cutlets until browned and cooked through.

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 + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

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

  4. Mutton + hamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,588 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 cutlets
Provide the main protein, which cooks through and carries the coating.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns during cooking.
Chopped ham
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the coating.
Chopped parsley
Adds fresh, green herbal aroma and flavour to the coating.
Chopped chives
Adds a mild onion-like aroma to the coating.

The step that matters

Cook the cutlets until browned and cooked through. The coating needs enough heat to brown and crisp while the meat cooks through to a safe internal temperature. Too little heat leaves the crumbs pale and soggy, while too much browns the outside before the centre is cooked.

Swap the chive

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, bread, ham, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Chivethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, bread, ham, parsley. 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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