Name: Breaded Lamb Chops
Ingredients: 2 French lamb chops; 1 teaspoon salt; 3 tablespoons butter; Cayenne pepper to taste; 1 tablespoon flour; ½ cup milk; 1 tablespoon chopped ham; Breadcrumbs for coating; 1 egg, beaten

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Breaded Lamb Chops

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

Make a thick white sauce by melting butter, adding flour, and gradually whisking in milk.
Stir in chopped ham and set the sauce aside to cool.

Prepare the chops

Broil the lamb chops, seasoning with salt and cayenne pepper.
Spread both sides of the chops with a layer of the sauce.
Let the chops stand on a greased plate until firm.

Bread and fry

Dip the chops in breadcrumbs, then in the beaten egg, and again in breadcrumbs.
Fry the coated chops in deep fat until golden brown.
Serve with Cuban or Tomato Sauce.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,165 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Lamb + hamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together160 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

Butter and flour 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

Lamb chops: Provide the meat that is broiled, coated and fried as the main dish.
Butter: Enriches the white sauce, adding fat and a rich flavour.
Flour: Thickens the melted butter and milk into a stiff white sauce that holds the chops together.
Milk: Forms the liquid base of the white sauce.
Egg: Binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the chops.
Breadcrumbs: Form a crisp, golden coating when fried in deep fat.

The step that matters

Let the chops stand until firm. The sauce layer must set before breading; if the chops are coated while the sauce is still soft, the crumbs can slide off and the coating can break apart in the hot fat.

“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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Breaded Lamb Chops