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Veal Cutlet

A pan‑fried veal cutlet served with a buttery celery‑seed sauce and garnished with parsley and pounded crackers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Cutlet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the veal cutlets in salt water for a short time, then remove and pat dry.

  2. Heat lard or butter in a pan until hot.

  3. Beat the egg in a plate and place flour on another plate.

  4. Dip each cutlet first in the egg, then in the flour on both sides.

Fry and make the sauce

  1. Fry the cutlets in the hot pan until nearly done, turning carefully once.

  2. When they begin to brown, pour off excess lard and add a little water, butter, and celery seed.

  3. Fry, turning frequently, until fully cooked.

  4. Add milk, butter, pepper, salt, onion, and parsley to the pan, stirring constantly until it boils.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the cutlets in a hot dish and garnish with parsley.

  2. Sift pounded crackers over the dish before serving.

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 + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 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. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

Veal cutlets
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through by frying.
Egg
Binds the flour coating so it adheres to the cutlet during frying.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that browns and crisps in the hot fat.
Lard or butter
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the coating.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, adding creaminess as it reduces and boils.

The step that matters

Turning the cutlets carefully once while nearly done. The egg and flour coating is fragile and can tear or slide off if handled roughly. Fried too hot, the coating can scorch before the meat cooks through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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