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Braised Mutton Chops

Braised mutton chops cooked with vegetables and broth, finished with a reduced gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. 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

  1. If the tenderness of the chops is uncertain, use breast chops and 'french' them by stripping the bone clean.

  2. Pound the chops on both sides with a heavy knife.

  3. Fry the vegetables in butter until slightly brown.

  4. Simmer the vegetables with a few tablespoons of boiling water for about 15 minutes.

Braise

  1. In a covered saucepan or bake pan, layer the vegetables at the bottom.

  2. Sear the chops in a hot frying pan until slightly browned on both sides.

  3. Place the seared chops on the bed of vegetables and add enough broth to cover them.

  4. Cover the pan tightly and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Arrange the chops in the center of a serving dish with the vegetables around them.

  2. Boil down the gravy in the pan for a few moments, strain it over the chops, and serve.

  3. If desired, thicken the sauce with a pinch of corn starch blended with a few drops of cold water, boil for 3 minutes while stirring, and strain.

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. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  5. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
Long covered braising in broth turns the tough meat tender and juicy.
Butter
Fat that browns the vegetables, adding richness and a toasted flavour to the base.
Onion or leek
Aromatic base that softens and sweetens as it cooks, flavouring the broth and gravy.
Carrot
Releases natural sugars during frying and simmering, adding sweetness to the gravy.
Turnip
Softens into the braising liquid, adding body and subtle sweetness to the gravy.
Celery
Adds savoury aromatic depth to the vegetable base and the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Sear the chops until browned on both sides. Browning creates Maillard flavour compounds on the meat surface that carry into the gravy. Pale searing leaves the sauce flat and dull.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, turnip, butter, pepper, celery, carrot):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, turnip, butter, pepper, celery, carrot. 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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