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Mutton Chops

Breaded mutton chops served with a mushroom ketchup and port wine gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Mutton Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Trim the mutton chops and dip them in hot melted butter or warm ghee.

  2. Cover the chops with a mixture of grated bread, chopped parsley, marjoram, salt, and pepper.

  3. Dip the chops into the beaten egg yolks and sprinkle with more bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the chops in butter until golden brown.

  2. For the gravy, thicken about ½ pint of gravy, then add mushroom ketchup and port wine.

  3. Place the chops in a dish, pour the gravy over them, 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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
The main meat, which the breading and gravy are built around.
Egg yolks
Bind the crumb coating to the chops so it adheres during frying.
Grated bread
Forms a crisp, golden crust that protects the meat during frying.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the coating brown evenly in the pan.
Thickened gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth to the finished chops.

The step that matters

Fry the chops until golden brown. Frying over steady heat browns the breaded coating through Maillard browning and crisps it, while the meat cooks through. Too high a heat burns the crumb before the chop is cooked inside.

Swap the marjoram

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramthe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Capersfits less well

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