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Lamb Cutlets, with Cucumber Sauce

Lamb cutlets seasoned with butter, herbs, and lemon, fried in lard, served with cucumber sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and parsley 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 ↓

Lamb Cutlets, with Cucumber Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Cut the chine off the neck of lamb and slice it into cutlets.

  2. Trim the cutlets neatly.

Cook in butter

  1. In a stew‑pan, melt the butter and add pepper, salt, shallots, thyme, parsley, and lemon juice.

  2. Add the cutlets to the pan and cook until three‑quarters done.

  3. Remove the cutlets and let them cool slightly.

Coat and fry

  1. Brush the cutlets with egg yolk and sprinkle with grated bread.

  2. Fry the cutlets in boiling lard until golden brown.

  3. Drain off excess fat and serve with cucumber sauce in the center of the 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. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  4. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb neck
Provides the meat for the cutlets, which becomes tender and juicy when cooked partway in butter.
Butter
Carries the herbs and aromatics and adds richness and flavor to the cutlets.
Egg yolk
Brushed on as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to the cutlets.
Grated bread
Forms a crisp, golden crust when the coated cutlets are fried.
Lard
Fries the coated cutlets at high heat, browning the crust and adding richness.

The step that matters

Frying in boiling lard. The lard must be hot enough to brown the bread crust quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy before it turns golden, and the meat overcooks while the crust catches up.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, butter, pepper, thyme, parsley, lemon, egg):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Spinachfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, pepper, thyme, parsley, lemon, egg. 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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