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Mutton Cutlets

Mutton cutlets coated in egg and breadcrumbs, fried and served with mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Mutton Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the back end of a neck of mutton into neat pieces and shorten each bone.

  2. Brush the pieces with egg and cover them with bread crumbs.

  3. Mash the potatoes with a little butter and cream.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets and arrange them around the mashed potatoes in the center of the dish.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Forms the main meat portion of the cutlets and carries most of the flavor.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to the meat.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating when fried.
Potatoes
Provide the starchy base of the mashed potatoes served with the cutlets.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the mashed potatoes.
Cream
Adds moisture and smoothness to the mashed potatoes.

The step that matters

Covering the pieces with bread crumbs. Egg must coat the meat evenly and the crumbs must be pressed on firmly; gaps let the meat dry out or the coating fall off during frying.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, egg, bread, butter, cream. 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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