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Mutton Cutlets, a LA Maintenon

Mutton cutlets seasoned with pepper, salt, mushrooms, parsley, shallots, brown sauce, nutmeg, and lemon, wrapped in paper and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets, a LA Maintenon

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Season the mutton cutlets with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Add the chopped mushrooms, parsley, and shallots.

  3. Brown the cutlets on both sides, then pour off the grease.

  4. Add the brown sauce, nutmeg, and lemon juice; simmer for 5 minutes.

  5. Cool the cutlets in the larder.

Wrap in paper

  1. Cut heart‑shaped pieces from the note‑paper and oil them.

  2. Place a cutlet and some sauce in each paper, then twist the edges tightly.

  3. Mark the papers with a heated skewer to resemble broiled cutlets.

Bake and serve

  1. Before serving, warm the cutlets in the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

  2. Serve on a napkin with fried parsley and a side of brown 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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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 and becomes tender as it is simmered in sauce.
Shallots
Add a mild sweetness and aromatic depth to the sauce as they cook.
Brown sauce
Adds moisture and rich savoury flavour that coats the cutlets during warming.
Mushrooms
Contribute earthy flavour and moisture to the filling as they cook down.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat and sauce.

The step that matters

Cooling the cutlets before wrapping. Wrapping hot cutlets in oiled paper can make the paper tear or steam, and the sauce may run out. Cooling them first lets the sauce thicken slightly and keeps the parcels intact during the final warming in the oven.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, mushroom, parsley, shallot, sauce, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, mushroom, parsley, shallot, sauce, lemon. 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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