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Mutton Chops with Tomatoes

A stew of mutton chops simmered with tomatoes, onion, water, and lemon, then served with optional parsley and cayenne.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mutton Chops with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Braise

  1. Place mutton chops in a stewpan with salt, pepper, chopped onion, and sliced tomatoes.

  2. Add 1 cup of water and cook until the chops are tender.

  3. Remove the chops and let them drain from the gravy.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Pour the tomatoes and liquid into a sieve and pulp until thick.

  2. Mix in the juice of 1 lemon and pour over the chops.

  3. Boil briefly before serving and sprinkle with chopped parsley and cayenne if desired.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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 becomes tender during slow simmering in liquid.
Tomatoes
Break down into a thick pulp that gives the sauce body and a bright, acidic flavor.
Onion
Adds savory sweetness and aromatic depth to the cooking liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the rich meat.

The step that matters

Pulping the tomatoes until thick. Pressing the cooked tomatoes through a sieve removes skins and seeds and concentrates the liquid. If the pulp is too thin, the gravy stays watery and does not coat the chops well.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, pepper, onion, tomato, lemon):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, onion, tomato, lemon. 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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