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Fried Mutton Chops

Fried mutton chops served with a mushroom ketchup and gravy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Fried Mutton Chops

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Trim the mutton chops.

  2. Dust the trimmed chops with flour.

Braise

  1. Heat a frying pan and lightly brown the chops on both sides.

  2. Place the chops in a pie dish.

  3. Cover the chops with stock or water.

  4. Bake the chops in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 2 hours, turning occasionally.

Fry and make the sauce

  1. Dip the chops in flour.

  2. Fry the chops gently in butter or dripping for about 15 minutes.

  3. Drain the fried chops and arrange them on a dish.

  4. Mix 2 teaspoons of flour with ½ cup of the gravy and pour the mixture into the pan.

  5. Stir until it boils and thickens.

  6. Add a little mushroom ketchup, pepper, and coarse sea salt to taste.

  7. Strain the sauce over the fried chops.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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

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

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

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

  3. Mushroom + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 chops
Provide the meat, which becomes tender through long, slow baking in liquid.
Flour
Coats the chops for browning and thickens the gravy sauce as its starch cooks.
Butter or dripping
Adds fat for frying, giving the chops a rich flavour and golden browning.
Gravy from the dish
Supplies liquid and savoury meat flavour for the finished sauce.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds concentrated savoury depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce. Flour must be mixed smoothly into the gravy and stirred until it boils, because starch only thickens fully when hot and unmixed flour forms lumps.

“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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