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Mutton Cutlets a LA Soubise

Mutton cutlets served with a creamy onion sauce over mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets a LA Soubise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Trim the cutlets to be the same size.

  2. Coat the cutlets with egg and then with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the cutlets in hot fat until golden brown.

Make the soubise sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, add the flour, and gradually stir in the milk; bring to a boil.

  2. Add the cream, chopped onions, salt, and pepper to the sauce; mix well and serve with the cutlets.

Serve

  1. Serve the cutlets on a mound of mashed potatoes.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Mutton cutlets
The main protein, which is cooked through and browned in hot fat.
Egg
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the cutlets during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden-brown crust when fried.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce.
Onions
Add sweetness and savoury flavour to the soubise sauce as they soften.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Bring the sauce to a boil after adding the milk. Flour must be cooked in the hot butter and milk mixture long enough to thicken fully. Without a boil, the sauce stays thin and can taste of raw flour.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, bread, flour, cream, pepper, egg, butter):

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, bread, flour, cream, pepper, egg, butter. 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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