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Mutton Cutlets and Tomatoes

Mutton cutlets stewed with tomatoes, brown gravy, carrot, onion, lemon juice, and optional sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 Cutlets and Tomatoes

8 cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the mutton into cutlets, trimming them neatly and leaving a small piece of bone on each.

  2. Fry the cutlets in a little butter until browned, but do not cook them through.

Make the sauce

  1. Slice the carrot and onion thinly.

  2. Add them to the cutlets along with salt, pepper, and brown gravy.

  3. Add a glass of sherry. Stir the mixture.

  4. Stew until the cutlets are tender.

Serve

  1. Remove the cutlets and place them on a hot dish.

  2. Heat the tomatoes.

  3. Pour the heated tomatoes over the cutlets.

  4. Add lemon juice to the gravy. Pour the mixture around the dish.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton neck
Provides the meat that becomes tender during slow stewing.
Butter
Browns the cutlet surfaces during frying, adding colour and savoury flavour.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a fresh, tangy flavour to the finished sauce.
Brown gravy
Adds savoury depth and body to the stewing liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets without cooking them through. Searing builds browned flavour on the surface, but overcooking at this stage leaves the meat dry and tough once it is stewed later.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, tomato, carrot, onion, butter, pepper):

  1. Limefits about as well
  2. Mangofits about as well
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, tomato, carrot, onion, butter, pepper. 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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