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Mutton Chops with Tomato Sauce

Mutton chops coated in egg and cracker crumbs, fried and served with a tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mutton Chops with Tomato Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

  1. Season the mutton chops with salt and pepper.

  2. Dip the chops in the beaten eggs, then roll them in cracker crumbs.

Make the tomato sauce

  1. Prepare the tomatoes by straining them through a sieve to remove seeds and stewing until thick.

  2. Season the tomato sauce with salt, pepper, and butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the chops in hot drippings until browned.

  2. Serve the browned chops on a hot platter and pour the tomato sauce over them.

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 + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Mutton + tomatotop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together452 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Mutton chops
Provide the main meat, which browns in the drippings to form the crisp exterior.
Beaten eggs
Act as a binder so the cracker crumbs adhere to the chops.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating when fried in hot drippings.
Drippings
Conduct heat and add fat that browns the coated chops.
Tomatoes
Supply acidity and body, thickening into the sauce when stewed down.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth finish to the tomato sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the chops in hot drippings until browned. The fat must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the coating absorbs grease and turns soggy before the meat cooks through.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, pepper, egg, butter. 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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