Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Veal Cutlets
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cutlets
Cut the veal into pieces about half an inch thick, as large as the palm of your hand.
Season the cutlets with pepper and salt.
Grate stale bread and rub it through a cullender, adding chopped sweet marjoram, grated lemon peel, and some powdered mace or nutmeg.
Spread the mixture on a large flat dish.
Have ready in a pan some beaten egg.
First dip each cutlet into the egg, then into the seasoning on the dish, ensuring a sufficient quantity adheres to both sides of the meat.
You may mix a little saffron with the bread crumbs.
Fry and serve
Melt in your frying‑pan, over a quick fire, some beef‑dripping, lard, or fresh butter; when it boils lay the cutlets in it and fry them thoroughly, turning them on both sides and taking care that they do not burn.
Place the fried cutlets in a covered dish near the fire while you finish the gravy in the pan, first skimming it, then shaking in a little flour and stirring it round.
Pour the hot gravy around the cutlets and garnish with little bunches of curled parsley.
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.
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Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,557 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Veal (in the method)
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through by frying in fat.
- Stale bread (in the method)
- Grated into crumbs that form a crisp, golden coating on the cutlets.
- Egg (in the method)
- Acts as a binder so the seasoning crumbs adhere to the meat.
- Beef-dripping, lard, or butter (in the method)
- Fries the cutlets, conducting heat for browning and adding rich flavour.
- Flour (in the method)
- Thickens the pan juices into the gravy.
The step that matters
Frying the coated cutlets. Over a quick fire the coating can scorch before the veal cooks through. Frying thoroughly on both sides with careful turning lets the meat cook evenly while the crumbs brown without burning.
“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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