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Mutton Cutlets Stewed in Their Own Gravy

Mutton cutlets are stewed in their own gravy with coarse sea salt, black pepper, flour, and spring water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Mutton and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,442 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Mutton Cutlets Stewed in Their Own Gravy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dip the mutton cutlets in cold water.

  2. Dredge both sides of the cutlets with black pepper and flour.

  3. Rinse a thick iron saucepan with spring water. Leave 2 tablespoons of spring water in the saucepan.

  4. Arrange the cutlets in a single layer in the saucepan.

Stew

  1. Place the saucepan over a very gentle fire.

  2. Add a little coarse sea salt when the cutlets begin to stew.

  3. Let them simmer gently for 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes. Turn the cutlets halfway through cooking.

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. Mutton + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,442 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mutton + flourtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (grass, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton cutlets
Provide the meat that becomes tender through slow, gentle simmering.
Flour
Coats the cutlets so they brown lightly and help thicken the gravy.
Black pepper
Adds aromatic heat to the coating on the cutlets.

The step that matters

Keeping the fire very gentle while the cutlets simmer. Gentle, low heat lets the connective tissue in the mutton break down slowly while the meat stays moist. A strong fire can toughen the meat and scorch the flour coating on the bottom of the pan.

“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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