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Cutlets a LA Irish Stew

A stew of mutton neck cutlets simmered with onions, herbs, veal broth, and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cutlets a LA Irish Stew

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Remove the bone from the neck of mutton and cut it into chops.

  2. Season the chops with pepper, coarse sea salt, mushroom powder, and beaten mace.

Stew and serve

  1. In a stewpan, add the chops, sliced onion, parsley, thyme, and veal broth.

  2. Simmer the chops until three-quarters cooked.

  3. Add the peeled whole potatoes and continue to stew until fully cooked.

  4. Serve in a deep dish.

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

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

  3. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + thymetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton neck
Provides the meat that becomes tender and flavourful as it simmers slowly.
Potatoes
Absorb the broth and turn soft, thickening the stew and adding body.
Veal broth
Forms the cooking liquid that moistens the meat and carries the flavours.
Onion
Adds sweetness and savoury depth as it softens into the broth.

The step that matters

Simmering the chops until three-quarters cooked. Simmering gently keeps the meat tender; boiling hard toughens muscle fibres. Adding potatoes only after the meat is partly done prevents them from turning mushy before the chops are ready.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, mushroom, onion, parsley, thyme, veal):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, mushroom, onion, parsley, thyme, veal. 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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