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Mutton Cutlets with Green Peas

Mutton cutlets coated in breadcrumbs and fried, served with sautéed green peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets with Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Trim the cutlets and flatten them with a wetted cutlet bat or heavy chopping knife.

  2. Beat the egg, add 2 tablespoons of warm butter, and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Dip the cutlets in the egg mixture and coat them with breadcrumbs.

Cook the peas

  1. Boil the peas. Drain the peas well.

  2. Toss the peas in a pan with 1 tablespoon of butter, salt, and pepper until well mixed.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat the remaining 1.5 ounces of butter in a sauté pan.

  2. Fry the cutlets quickly until lightly browned on both sides. Drain the cutlets well.

  3. Arrange the cutlets overlapping each other on a serving plate.

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. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 recipes

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

  3. Mutton + peastop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

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

  4. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  5. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 cutlets
Flattened cutlets cook quickly and stay tender when fried briefly in butter.
Egg
Binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the cutlets during frying.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot butter.
Butter
Adds richness and carries browning flavour when the cutlets are fried.
Peas
Provide moisture and a sweet, fresh flavour to the plate.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets quickly. Breadcrumbs brown fast in hot butter, while the thin meat stays tender only if it is not overcooked. Long frying dries the meat and can burn the coating.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Peasthe original
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Lima beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, sauce, butter, egg, 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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