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Mutton Cutlets, Braised

Braised mutton cutlets with larding bacon, buttered vegetables, stock, and glaze, served with vegetables and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets, Braised

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Trim and flatten the cutlets into a good shape.

  2. Insert 5 or 6 pieces of larding bacon into the lean part of each cutlet.

Braise

  1. In a stewpan, combine the sliced vegetables, butter, and bouquet garni.

  2. Lay the cutlets on top, cover, and cook gently for 20 minutes.

  3. Bring the stock to a boil and pour enough to cover the vegetables three-quarters.

  4. Add more stock as it reduces, cover the cutlets with buttered paper, and cook gently for about 50 minutes.

Glaze and serve

  1. Brush one side of the cutlets with meat glaze and place in a 400°F (200°C) oven for a few minutes to crisp the bacon.

  2. Arrange the cutlets in a circle on a border of potato, serve the vegetables in the center, and pour the sauce around.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Provide the meat that becomes tender during slow, gentle braising.
Larding bacon
Adds fat and savoury flavour that moistens the lean meat as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the vegetables brown gently in the stewpan.
Stock
Braising liquid that cooks the meat slowly and forms the base of the sauce.
Onion, carrot, celery, and turnip
Flavour the braising liquid and add sweetness as they soften.

The step that matters

Keeping the braise gently simmering. Cooking at a hard boil toughens meat proteins and dries the cutlets, while a gentle simmer lets connective tissue break down slowly into tender, moist meat.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, carrot, celery, turnip, parsley, thyme):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, carrot, celery, turnip, parsley, thyme. 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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