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Mutton Steaks with French Beans

Mutton steaks served over simmered French beans, coated in egg and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Steaks with French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Prepare the French beans.

  2. Simmer them with salt and butter.

  3. Add the egg yolk.

  4. Shake the pan over the heat for 1-2 minutes.

Cook the mutton

  1. Coat the mutton steaks with egg and bread crumbs.

  2. Boil or fry the mutton steaks until cooked.

Serve

  1. Serve the mutton steaks on top of the French beans.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Beans + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together332 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the simmered French beans.
Egg yolk
Thickens and enriches the buttery beans as it gently sets with the heat.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs stick to the mutton steaks.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating when the steaks are fried.
Mutton steaks
Provide the main meat, cooked through by boiling or frying.

The step that matters

Shaking the pan after adding the egg yolk. The yolk thickens gently as its proteins set with low heat. Too much heat or too long over the flame can scramble it, leaving the beans grainy instead of smooth and glossy.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Peasfits better
  2. Lima beansfits better
  3. Pecansfits better
  4. Beansthe original

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