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Mutton Chops

A seasoned mutton chop dish with pickle liquor, egg yolk mixture, herbs, bread, and optional gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Mutton Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Season the mutton chops with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Add pickle liquor and warm the meat without boiling.

Make the herb coating

  1. Mash the yolk of a hard boiled egg and mix with chopped herbs, grated bread, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

  2. Cover the chops with the mixture and wrap each in buttered paper.

Broil and serve

  1. Broil over a clear fire, turning often.

  2. Serve in the paper or with thickened gravy.

  3. Trim the chops, sprinkle with pepper and salt, and broil again.

  4. For another method, dip the chops in beaten egg, coat with seasoned grated bread, and fry in butter until golden brown.

  5. Serve with thickened gravy and garnish with fried parsley or sliced lime.

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

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
Provide the meat that is seasoned, warmed and cooked over a clear fire.
Hard boiled egg yolk
Mashed into the coating to bind the herbs and bread together.
Grated bread
Forms the crumb coating that browns and holds the herb mixture on the chops.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the coating turn golden when the chops are fried.
Thickened gravy
Adds moisture and savoury body to the chops when served.

The step that matters

Broil over a clear fire, turning often. Turning often keeps the outside from scorching before the heat reaches the centre of the chop, so the meat cooks evenly and the coating browns without burning.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Turmericfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Cardamomfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, egg, bread, butter, ghee, parsley. 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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