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Mutton-collops

Thin slices of mutton cooked with butter, flour, gravy, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mutton-collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut very thin slices from the leg or chump end of the loin of mutton.

  2. Sprinkle the slices with salt, pepper, pounded mace, minced savory herbs, and minced shallot.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the slices in butter until browned.

  2. Stir in the flour, then add the gravy and lemon juice.

  3. Simmer gently for about 5 to 7 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Provides the main meat, which is cut thin so it cooks quickly and stays tender.
Butter
Fat for frying the slices, adding richness and browning the surface.
Flour
Thickens the gravy into a light sauce that coats the meat.
Shallots
Add a mild sweet onion-like aroma that flavours the meat and sauce.
Gravy
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and moistens the meat as it simmers.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the slices in butter until browned. Thin slices can dry out or turn grey if overcooked; browning in hot butter builds flavour through the Maillard reaction, so they should colour quickly over a sufficiently hot pan before the gravy is added.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

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