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English Mutton Chops

A simple preparation of thick Southdown mutton chops seasoned with salt, pepper, flour, and butter, then broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

English Mutton Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim excess fat and skin from the mutton chops.

  2. Sprinkle the chops with salt, pepper, and flour.

  3. Place the chops in a double boiler.

Cook

  1. Broil one side until done.

  2. Broil the other side without turning them more than once.

  3. Season the chops with salt and pepper.

  4. Wrap the chops in buttered paper.

  5. Broil for ten minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Mutton + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,781 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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
The main meat, whose fat and juices flavour and moisten the chops as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps the wrapped chops brown.
Flour
Forms a light coating on the chops that helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Broil the other side without turning them more than once. Repeated turning keeps the surface from forming a browned crust and lets juices escape, so the chops dry out and lose flavour.

“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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