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Mutton Cutlets and Green Peas

Mutton cutlets served with boiled green peas and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets and Green Peas

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Mince the mutton, season it well, and form into cutlet shapes, removing all bone and fat.

  2. Save the fat for frying the cutlets, adding lard or butter if needed.

  3. Dip the cutlets in beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the peas in water with sugar, salt, and baking soda for about 5 minutes.

  2. Fry the cutlets until they are a nice golden brown.

  3. Serve the peas in the center of a dish.

  4. Arrange the cutlets around the peas.

  5. Pour gravy over the top.

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

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

  2. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

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

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

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Peas + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,331 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

Roast mutton
Forms the main body of the cutlets and provides the meaty flavour and fat for frying.
Eggs
Bind the coating so the bread crumbs adhere to the cutlets.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden browned crust around the cutlets when fried.
Peas
Provide the green vegetable base and soft texture beside the cutlets.
Baking soda
Raises the alkalinity of the cooking water, helping peas stay bright green.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets until golden brown. Frying over steady heat browns the bread crumb coating through the Maillard reaction, which builds flavour and a crisp crust. Too high heat can scorch the crumbs before the mince heats through, so keep the heat moderate and turn them as needed.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Peasthe original
  2. Lima beansfits about as well
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Walnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, egg, bread, pepper, butter, sugar. 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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