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Lamb Cutlets with Spinach

Lamb cutlets served with stewed spinach.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Lamb Cutlets with Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Cut the steaks from the lamb loin.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the lamb steaks in butter or oil until cooked to your liking.

  2. Stew the spinach until tender.

  3. Place the stewed spinach in a dish and arrange the fried cutlets around it.

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. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Lamb + spinachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lamb + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb loin steaks
Provide the tender meat that is the main element of the dish.
Spinach
Adds a soft, moist green base that the cutlets are served on.

The step that matters

Frying the lamb steaks until cooked to your liking. Lamb loin is lean and can turn dry and tough if overcooked, while undercooked meat stays pink in the centre. Frying over steady heat and checking doneness keeps the meat juicy and tender.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, pepper, butter. 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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