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Lamb Cutlets with Spinach

Lamb cutlets coated in egg and breadcrumbs, fried, served with boiled spinach.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Lamb Cutlets with Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Trim the chine bone and excess fat from the cutlets.

  2. Brush the cutlets with egg.

  3. Sprinkle the cutlets with bread crumbs.

  4. Season the cutlets with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  5. Dip the cutlets in clarified butter.

  6. Sprinkle the cutlets with more bread crumbs.

Fry and drain

  1. Fry the cutlets over high heat until golden.

  2. Drain the cutlets on paper towels.

Prepare the spinach and serve

  1. Boil the spinach, then drain it.

  2. Chop the spinach and season it.

  3. Arrange the cutlets on a dish with spinach in the center.

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. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

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

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

  3. Lamb + spinachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb cutlets
Provide the meat, which is the main component of the dish.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs adhere to the cutlets.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried.
Clarified butter
Conducts heat well and helps the coating brown evenly during frying.
Spinach
Adds a green, tender vegetable base beneath the cutlets.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets over high heat until golden. High heat sets and browns the crumb coating quickly, so it turns crisp before the lamb overcooks. Low heat lets the coating absorb fat and turn greasy.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, egg, bread, butter, pepper. 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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