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Rock-fish Cutlet

A cutlet made from rock fish, truffles, mushrooms, and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Margaret Brown · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Rock-fish Cutlet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Wash the rock fish clean.

  2. Cut it along the backbone, remove the backbone, cut the ribs off, then cut the fish into square pieces.

  3. Remove the skin from the pieces.

  4. Coat the pieces with small pieces of truffles that have been skinned and sliced, the slices being cut into three-quarters.

  5. Using a sharp-pointed knife, thrust the truffle pieces into the fish.

  6. Salt the fish and place it in a cool place for 1 hour.

Make the sauce and cook the fish

  1. Half an hour before dinner, take a medium-sized dripping pan, put in 1/2 pint of milk and a tablespoonful of butter.

  2. Lay all the fish pieces separately in this pan with the truffle side up, press them to keep them straight, and set on top of the stove for 1/4 hour.

  3. When done, take 1/2 pint of milk together with the milk in the pan, 2 tablespoonfuls of flour, 1 teaspoonful of white pepper, and 1 tablespoonful of butter; mix the butter and flour together until they form a cream, then pour the hot milk over to make a rich sauce.

  4. Add 1 dozen mushrooms and the remaining truffles to the sauce; cut the mushrooms into four quarters.

Serve

  1. Take up the fish and arrange it around the dish.

  2. Boil French potatoes and place them in the center of the dish.

  3. Garnish the dish with parsley and sliced lemon.

Make the chicken cutlets

  1. Chop the breast of a chicken the same way as making croquettes.

  2. After boiling it, take out 2 teaspoonfuls of the mixture.

  3. Roll the paste out very thin.

  4. Use a biscuit cutter to cut the paste.

  5. Wet the edges of the cut paste with 2 teaspoonfuls of chicken mixture and a beaten egg, and wet it all over the top.

  6. Roll the paste in vermicelli.

  7. Boil them until brown in hot lard.

  8. Serve on a napkin laid on a dish garnished with watercress.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

727Calories
24 gProtein
21 gFat
111 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Mushroom1/2 cup sliced (35g)15
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Margaret Brown. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Milk + mushroomtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,231 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, rich sauce when cooked together with butter.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce and keeps the fish moist while it cooks.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and helps flour blend smoothly into a cream.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Mixing the butter and flour into a cream before adding the hot milk. If the flour is added without being fully blended with the butter, it can form lumps when hot milk is poured in. Working the two together first coats the flour grains so the sauce stays smooth and thickens evenly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, butter, chicken, mushroom):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, chicken, mushroom. 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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