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Entbees of Mutton

Mutton cutlets served with a horseradish and Velouté sauce, finished in the oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Entbees of Mutton

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Remove the cutlets from the fire and let them cool in their own juices.

  2. Press the cutlets between two dishes until cold, then trim them neatly.

Make the horseradish sauce

  1. In a small saucepan, combine grated horseradish, butter, French vinegar, mignonette pepper, nutmeg, and sugar.

  2. Cover and stew the mixture gently for 20 minutes on low heat.

  3. Add Velouté sauce and boil for 10 minutes.

  4. Mix in the egg yolks and glaze.

Coat and bake

  1. Coat one side of the cutlets with the sauce using a brush.

  2. Sprinkle the cutlets with fried bread crumbs.

  3. Arrange the cutlets in a saucepan with half glaze and warm them in the oven at 300°F (150°C) for 15 minutes without browning.

  4. Serve with a small paper ruffle on the bone and pour half glaze underneath.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Horseradish + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together389 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Horseradish + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,646 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Horseradish + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Horseradish + saucetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together775 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and help it thicken and set when gently heated.
Horseradish
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the rich mutton.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth texture to the sauce.
Velouté sauce
Gives the sauce body and a smooth, thickened base.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating on the cutlets when fried in butter.

The step that matters

Warming the cutlets in the oven without browning. The egg yolks in the sauce can curdle or scramble if overheated, so the cutlets should warm gently at a moderate temperature to keep the coating smooth.

Swap the horseradish

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vinegar, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, sauce, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Horseradishthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, pepper, nutmeg, sugar, sauce, egg. 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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