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To Cook Veal Cutlets

Veal cutlets coated in cracker dust and spices, fried, then served with a creamy parsley sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

To Cook Veal Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Wash and wipe the cutlet.

  2. Dip the cutlet in the beaten egg and let it soak well.

  3. Shake cracker dust, mace, salt, and pepper onto the cutlet.

Fry and make the sauce

  1. Fry the cutlet in hot lard until nicely browned, then keep it hot.

  2. Strain the lard and place it in a clean pan.

  3. Add butter, flour, milk, and parsley to the pan. Stir until smooth.

  4. Pour the creamy sauce under the cutlets in the serving dish.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
The beaten egg coats the cutlet so the cracker dust crumbs adhere.
Cracker dust
Forms a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the cutlet when fried.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth, creamy sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the sauce and helps form its base with the flour.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlet until nicely browned. Browning through hot lard creates a crisp crust and savory flavor. If the lard is not hot enough, the crumbs absorb fat and turn greasy rather than crisp.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, pepper, butter, flour, milk, parsley):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, pepper, butter, flour, milk, parsley. 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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