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Chaudfroid of Mutton Cutlets

A chilled mutton cutlet dish glazed with good glaze and aspic, served with boiled vegetables and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cauliflower and cucumber match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 584 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Chaudfroid of Mutton Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mutton

  1. Trim the mutton cutlets and braise them in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour until tender.

  2. Remove the cutlets, place them on a board with a small weight, and let them cool.

  3. Trim the cutlets neatly and dip them in the glaze until smooth and shiny.

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil the vegetables (carrots, potatoes, peas, cauliflower, green haricot beans, French beans, cucumber) in separate saucepans until tender.

  2. Plunge the vegetables into cold water to preserve their color.

  3. Mix the vegetables with the mayonnaise sauce, except for the beetroot.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the cutlets in a circle on a dish, fill the center with the vegetable mixture, and add the beetroot last to avoid discoloration.

  2. Decorate the ends of each bone with small frills of paper and serve.

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. Cauliflower + cucumbertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together584 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Cucumber + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together345 recipes

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

  3. Cauliflower + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Beans + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together215 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Cauliflower + beanstop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together290 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Braising makes the meat tender, and the cooled cutlets hold their shape under the glaze.
Glaze
Gives the cutlets a smooth, shiny coating that seals and presents the meat.
Mayonnaise sauce
Adds richness and moisture, binding the cooked vegetables together.
Beetroot
Adds colour and earthy flavour; kept separate so its pigment does not stain the other vegetables.

The step that matters

Plunging the vegetables into cold water. Stopping cooking quickly keeps the vegetables firm and bright, and prevents them from going soft or dull from residual heat.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, carrot, peas, cauliflower, beans, cucumber, beetroot):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Turnipfits better
  3. Broccolifits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, carrot, peas, cauliflower, beans, cucumber, beetroot. 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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