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Mutton Cutlets, Maintenon

Mutton cutlets coated with herbs, breadcrumbs, and butter, then broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets, Maintenon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Trim the mutton cutlets.

  2. Half fry the cutlets.

Coat and cool

  1. Cover them with fine herbs and bread crumbs, and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Let the cutlets cool.

  3. Add fresh parsley to the fried herbs and shallot.

  4. Spread butter and herbs thickly on each cutlet.

  5. Sprinkle with bread crumbs.

Wrap and broil

  1. Wrap each cutlet in buttered parchment paper.

  2. Broil over a slow fire until done.

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. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Form the main body of the dish and provide the meat that cooks through.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating that helps the cutlets brown and hold the herbs.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the coating brown and the meat stay juicy.
Fine herbs
Add aroma and flavour to the coating and the cutlets.

The step that matters

Wrap each cutlet in buttered parchment paper. Parchment keeps the herbs and butter in contact with the meat and shields the outside from direct fire, so the cutlets cook through without drying or burning. Broiling over a slow fire then gives gentle, even heat.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Shallotthe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, bread, pepper, parsley, 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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