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Lamb Cutlets with Spinach

Lamb cutlets coated in breadcrumbs, fried, served with spinach purée and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Lamb Cutlets with Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Trim the cutlets and brush them with beaten egg seasoned with salt and pepper.

  2. Coat the cutlets with breadcrumbs.

Cook and serve

  1. Prepare the spinach purée and keep it hot.

  2. Heat the butter in a frying pan and fry the cutlets quickly until lightly browned on both sides.

  3. Drain the cutlets to remove excess fat.

  4. Arrange the cutlets in a circle on a hot dish, pile the spinach purée in the center, and pour the sauce around.

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. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Lamb + spinachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Lamb + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb cutlets
Provide the main meat, which browns and stays tender when fried quickly.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumbs stick to the cutlets.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when the cutlets are fried.
Butter
Conducts heat in the pan and adds richness and browning to the coating.
Spinach purée
Adds moisture, body and a soft green vegetable contrast to the crisp cutlets.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets quickly. Frying over high heat browns the breadcrumb coating before the meat overcooks. If the pan is too cool, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, butter, egg, bread, pepper, sauce. 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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