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Lamb Cutlets with Cucumber Sauce

Lamb cutlets coated in béchamel, breaded, fried, and served with cucumber sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 Cutlets with Cucumber Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Trim and flatten the lamb cutlets.

  2. Season both sides with salt and pepper.

  3. In a sauté pan, melt 2 oz. of butter.

  4. Fry the cutlets until light brown on both sides.

  5. Drain the cutlets.

  6. Place them between two tin sheets with a weight on top until cold.

  7. Immerse the cutlets in lukewarm béchamel or allemande sauce to coat them completely.

  8. Place the coated cutlets on a wire tray and let them cool.

Crumb and fry

  1. Crush a few cracknel biscuits finely.

  2. Roll the coated part of the cutlets in the crushed biscuits.

  3. Dip the cutlets in beaten egg.

  4. Crumb with panurette.

  5. Fry the cutlets in hot fat until nicely colored.

  6. Drain the cutlets.

Serve

  1. Arrange them in a circle on a plate.

  2. Fill the center with fried parsley.

  3. Put small paper frills on the bones.

  4. Serve with a boat of cucumber sauce.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + cucumbertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Biscuit + cucumbertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Biscuit + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together204 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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 cutlets
Main protein; frying and cooling set the meat's coating and shape.
Béchamel or allemande sauce
Thick sauce that coats the cutlets and helps the crumb adhere.
Egg
Beaten egg binds the crumbs to the coated cutlets.
Cracknel biscuits
Finely crushed biscuits form a crisp, browned outer crust.
Butter
Fat for frying that adds richness and browning.

The step that matters

Cooling the coated cutlets fully before crumbing. If the béchamel or allemande coating is still warm or soft, it will not hold its shape and the crumbs can slide off or the coating can melt into the hot fat. Chilling firms the sauce so the crumb coating stays intact during frying.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, sauce, biscuit, parsley, butter, egg, pepper. 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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