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Mutton Cutlets a LA Russe

Mutton cutlets simmered with wine, vegetables, herbs, tomato pulp, capers, and brown sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets a LA Russe

Ingredients

Directions

Brown and braise

  1. Melt butter in a pan and brown the cutlets for 1 minute on each side.

  2. Transfer the cutlets to a clean pan and add the white wine and vegetables.

  3. Add the herbs and a few peppercorns.

  4. Cook until the wine is absorbed.

  5. Remove the vegetables.

  6. Add the tomato pulp and capers.

Serve

  1. After 10 minutes, plate the cutlets with the tomato pulp spread over them.

  2. Heat the brown sauce.

  3. Pour it around the cutlets 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Tomato + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,370 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Tomato + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Provide the main meat, which browns on the surface and becomes tender during gentle simmering.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma as it reduces, flavouring the cutlets as it is absorbed.
Tomato pulp
Adds acidity, sweetness and moisture, spread over the cutlets for colour and flavour.
Brown sauce (no. 2)
Supplies a rich, savoury sauce that is poured around the cutlets at serving.

The step that matters

Cook until the wine is absorbed. Reducing the wine fully concentrates its acidity and aroma and keeps the sauce from tasting thin or raw. Stopping too early leaves harsh, watery flavour, while over-reducing can leave the pan dry and scorched.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, white wine, tomato, sauce, parsley, thyme, carrot):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, white wine, tomato, sauce, parsley, thyme, carrot. 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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