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Mutton Collops

Sliced mutton seasoned, fried, and simmered in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mutton Collops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the mutton into round slices about 2½ inches in diameter.

  2. Mix the shallot, herbs, mace, and a little pepper and salt, then spread this mixture on one side of the meat.

  3. Let it sit for about 1 hour.

Fry and make the sauce

  1. Fry the meat quickly in hot fat, starting with the side covered with the mixture.

  2. Remove the meat and keep it warm.

  3. Sprinkle the flour in the pan, which should have no more fat than the flour will absorb, and let it brown.

  4. Add the gravy or stock, season to taste, and boil gently for about 15 minutes.

  5. Add a little lemon juice or vinegar to flavor, and pour the sauce around the meat.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,523 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

  5. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Browns in the fat and thickens the gravy or stock into a sauce.
Mutton
Provides the main meat; quick frying browns its surface while keeping the slices tender.
Shallot or onion
Adds savoury aromatic flavour that infuses the meat while it rests.
Gravy or stock
Forms the liquid of the sauce, carrying savoury flavour and body.
Lemon juice or vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, savoury sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the meat quickly in hot fat. The meat is already cooked, so the goal is only a browned surface. Hot fat and a short time brown it through Maillard reaction without drying or toughening the slices.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, shallot, flour, lemon, 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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