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 ↓
Loin of Mutton Cutlets
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cutlets
Trim away nearly all the fat from the mutton chop and cut it down the middle.
Dip the cutlets in the beaten egg yolk, then coat with seasoned bread crumbs.
Fry the cutlets in a little butter over medium heat until browned on both sides.
Make the onion purée
To make the onion purée, boil the onions until very tender.
Rub the boiled onions through a sieve and return them to the pan with a small piece of butter or cream, pepper, and salt.
Cook the purée over low heat until thick, then place it in the center of a dish with the cutlets on each side.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,488 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together42,912 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Mutton chop
- Provides the meat that forms the cutlets and carries their savory flavor.
- Egg yolk
- Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the cutlet and browns when fried.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the cutlets when fried.
- Onions
- Cooked, sieved and thickened, they form a smooth, sweet purée that adds moisture and body.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat for frying, promoting browning and a rich flavor.
The step that matters
Cooking the onion purée until thick. Cooking the sieved onions over low heat drives off excess water so the purée holds its shape and does not run across the dish. Gentle heat also prevents scorching and sticking to the pan.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, egg, bread, butter, pepper):
- Asparagusfits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Leekfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, egg, bread, 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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