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Braised Mutton Chops

Braised mutton chops cooked with curry powder, butter, flour, and rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Braised Mutton Chops

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the sauce

  1. Drain the mutton chops in a colander.

  2. In a frying pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour until smooth. Gradually add the boiling water, stirring until smooth again.

  3. Add the mutton, curry powder, and salt to the pan. Stir the mixture for 10 minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Heap the mixture in the center of a fire-proof dish. Create a border of rice around it.

  2. Brush the entire dish with the beaten egg. Bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) until browned, about 5 to 10 minutes.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + muttontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor into the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the boiling water into a smooth sauce that coats the mutton.
Mutton chops
Provide the main meat, whose juices and fat enrich the sauce as it cooks.
Beaten egg
Brushed on the surface to help the top brown during baking.

The step that matters

Brush the entire dish with the beaten egg. Egg proteins set and brown in the oven, so an even coat gives a uniform golden color. Patchy coverage leaves pale spots and uneven browning.

“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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