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Pork Cutlets

A dish of sautéed pork cutlets served with a gravy made from flour, caramel, onion, stock, vinegar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pork Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the pork

  1. Select young pork that is not too fatty.

  2. Heat a small piece of butter in a hot frying pan.

  3. Cook the pork, turning frequently, and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  4. Once cooked, place the pork on a dish and keep warm.

Make the sauce

  1. Add a little water to the pan with 2 teaspoons of flour and caramel.

  2. Fry 1 tablespoon of chopped onion in some fat, then add 2 teaspoons of flour.

  3. Moisten with 1 cup of stock or water, add 1 bay leaf, 1 teaspoon of vinegar, and 1 teaspoon of mustard.

  4. Mix well, let boil for a minute, and strain over the cutlets.

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. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Young pork
Provides the meat for the cutlets; less fat keeps the cut lean and tender when fried.
Flour
Thickens the pan liquid into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens and balances the richness of the sauce.
Mustard
Adds sharp flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the pan. Flour needs to cook in fat and then be stirred into liquid while boiling to thicken without lumps. Adding it to cold liquid or skipping the boil leaves the sauce pasty and floury-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, butter, pepper, flour, vinegar, mustard):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, pepper, flour, vinegar, mustard. 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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