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Lamb Chops, En Casserole

Lamb chops coated in egg yolk and breadcrumbs, fried, then baked with gravy, sweet herbs, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Lamb Chops, En Casserole

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Coat each lamb chop with egg yolk.

  2. Mix breadcrumbs, cloves, mace, pepper, and salt; sprinkle over the chops.

  3. Fry the chops until light brown.

Assemble and serve

  1. Arrange the chops in a dish, leaving a hole in the center.

  2. In the hole, pour in the thick gravy mixed with sweet herbs and parsley.

  3. Garnish with fried parsley before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Lamb + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,322 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb loin chops
Provide the main meat, which browns and firms as it fries.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumb coating sticks to the chops.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust when the chops are fried.
Thick gravy
Adds moisture and savoury richness to the dish.

The step that matters

Fry the chops until light brown. Frying over sufficient heat browns the breadcrumb coating through the Maillard reaction, building flavour and a crisp crust. Too little heat leaves the coating pale and soggy, while too much burns it before the meat cooks through.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, egg, clove, pepper, parsley. 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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