Skip to main content
Main

Lamb Cutlets and Spinach

Lamb cutlets coated in egg and breadcrumbs, fried, served around sautéed spinach.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and spinach 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 and Spinach

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the lamb

  1. Trim excess fat and skin from the lamb cutlets.

  2. Clean the bones.

  3. Brush the cutlets with egg.

  4. Sprinkle the cutlets with bread crumbs.

  5. Season the cutlets with salt and pepper.

  6. Dip the cutlets in clarified butter.

  7. Add more bread crumbs on top of the cutlets.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets over medium‑high heat, turning as needed until cooked.

  2. Drain the cutlets on paper towels.

  3. Boil the spinach.

  4. Drain the spinach.

  5. Chop the spinach.

  6. Season the spinach with salt and pepper.

  7. Place the spinach in the center of a serving dish.

  8. Arrange the cutlets around the spinach.

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 + spinachtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Bread + buttertop 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
Main protein that is cooked through by frying until tender and browned on the outside.
Egg
Binds the bread crumbs to the cutlets so the coating holds during frying.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that protects the meat and adds crunch.
Clarified butter
Fat for frying that browns the coating and adds rich flavour without burning as quickly as whole butter.
Spinach
Provides a green vegetable side that is cooked, chopped and seasoned to accompany the cutlets.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets over medium‑high heat. Frying at medium‑high heat browns the bread crumb coating quickly while the meat cooks through. Too little heat leaves the coating pale and greasy, while too much heat can scorch the crumbs before the lamb is cooked inside.

Swap the spinach

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

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

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

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes