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Mutton Boulettes

A mixture of boiled mutton, potatoes, herbs, and egg yolks formed into balls, coated in bread crumbs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mutton Boulettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in milk.

  2. Mix the soaked bread crumbs with the boiled mutton, chopped potatoes, chopped herbs, salt, pepper, and beaten egg yolks using a wooden spoon.

  3. Dust a surface with flour.

  4. Take a spoonful of the mixture and roll it into a ball on the floured surface.

  5. Dip each ball in bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Melt the butter or fat in a frying pan.

  2. Fry the boulettes until brown and serve with sauce piquante or tomato sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Boiled mutton
Forms the main body of the boulettes, giving them their meaty flavour and substance.
Bread crumbs
Soaked in milk, they bind the mixture and keep the boulettes moist inside.
Beaten egg yolks
Bind the mixture together so the balls hold their shape while frying.
Butter or fat
Conducts heat to the outside of the balls, browning and crisping their surface.

The step that matters

Frying the boulettes until brown. The fat must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. Frying in cool fat lets the balls soak up grease and fall apart, while the bread-crumb coating browns through Maillard reactions that add flavour.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, mutton, pepper, egg, flour, butter):

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, mutton, pepper, egg, flour, 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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