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Another Way to Dress Mutton Chops

Breaded mutton chops fried and served with a ketchup‑port wine gravy.

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 ↓

Another Way to Dress Mutton Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Cut the chops from a loin or the best end of a neck of mutton.

  2. Trim off the fat and dip the chops into a beaten egg.

  3. Coat the chops with grated bread seasoned with pepper, salt, and minced parsley.

Fry and drain

  1. Fry the chops in a little butter until golden.

  2. Drain the chops on a sieve before the fire.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Thicken ½ pint of gravy, then add 1 tablespoon of ketchup and 1 tablespoon of port wine.

  2. Pour the gravy into a dish and place the chops in it.

  3. Garnish with fried parsley or cut lemon.

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + port winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,499 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  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

Mutton chops
Main meat, cooked until golden and tender in the frying butter.
Beaten egg
Binds the grated bread coating so it adheres to the chops.
Grated bread
Forms a crisp, golden coating when fried.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the coating and chops.
Gravy
Forms the savoury sauce the chops are served in.
Port wine
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the chops in a little butter until golden. The egg and bread coating browns through Maillard reactions only with enough heat and fat. Too little heat leaves it pale and soggy, while too much burns the crumb before the meat cooks through.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, egg, bread, pepper, butter, ketchup, port wine):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, egg, bread, pepper, butter, ketchup, port wine. 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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