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Egg Cutlets

Hard‑boiled eggs cut in half, breaded and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Egg Cutlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Boil 4 eggs in a deep saucepan for 20 minutes.

  2. Pour off hot water, then cover eggs with cold water.

  3. Peel the eggs.

  4. Cut the eggs in half lengthwise.

Coat the eggs

  1. Heat a soup plate in hot water.

  2. Add butter, salt, and pepper to the soup plate, stirring until melted.

  3. Beat the additional egg in another plate.

  4. Place bread crumbs in a third plate.

  5. Dip each egg half in melted butter.

  6. Dip each egg half in beaten egg.

  7. Roll each egg half in bread crumbs.

  8. Place the coated egg halves on a platter.

  9. Chill the platter until ready to cook.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the egg halves in hot fat for 1 minute.

  2. Serve with bisque or curry 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.

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

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide the main body of the cutlet, set firm by boiling and then fried for a golden exterior.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth coating that helps the crumbs adhere.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned outer crust when fried.
Additional egg
Beaten egg acts as a binder so the bread crumbs stick to the egg halves.

The step that matters

Chill the coated egg halves before frying. Chilling firms the butter and egg coating so the breading stays on during frying instead of sliding off or soaking up excess 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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