Skip to main content
Main

To Fry Mutton Steaks

Mutton steaks are fried after coating with egg yolk and seasoned breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

To Fry Mutton Steaks

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim excess fat from mutton steaks and beat them well.

  2. Rub the steaks with the yolk of the egg.

  3. Mix bread crumbs, parsley, thyme, lemon peel, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Strew the mixture thickly over the steaks.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the steaks in butter until nicely browned.

  2. Serve with crisped parsley.

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 + 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

Mutton steaks
Form the main body of the dish, cooked through and browned in butter.
Egg yolk
Binds the coating so the crumb mixture adheres to the steaks.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the steaks when fried.
Lemon peel
Adds bright aroma that lightens the richness of the mutton.

The step that matters

Fry the steaks in butter until nicely browned. Browning depends on enough heat and a dry surface. Too low heat leaves the crumb coating pale and soggy, while the steak can overcook before the crust forms.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

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

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes