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Mutton Cutlets À LA Russe

Mutton cutlets simmered in wine, vegetables, herbs, tomato pulp, and capers, served with 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 À LA Russe

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the cutlets

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Brown the cutlets for 1 minute on each side.

  3. Transfer the cutlets to a clean pan.

Braise in wine

  1. Add the wine and vegetables.

  2. Add the herbs and a few peppercorns.

  3. Cook until the wine is absorbed.

  4. Remove the vegetables, then add the tomato pulp and capers.

  5. Cook for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the cutlets with the tomato pulp spread over them.

  2. Pour the hot brown sauce around.

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
Browning in butter gives the meat a savoury crust, and gentle cooking keeps it tender.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma, and its liquid cooks the cutlets while it reduces.
Tomato pulp
Adds acidity and body, thickening the sauce as it cooks down.
Brown sauce
Supplies rich, savoury body to the dish as a hot sauce poured around the cutlets.
Butter
Carries heat for browning and adds richness and flavour to the meat.
Capers
Add a sharp, salty tang that cuts through the richness of the meat and sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the cutlets. Searing the surface over high heat creates browned flavour through the Maillard reaction. Turning them only once per side for about a minute keeps the outside coloured without overcooking the interior.

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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