Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Veal Cutlets
Ingredients
Directions
Roll the veal slices in wheat flour.
Dip the floured veal in the beaten eggs.
Coat the veal with seasoned bread crumbs.
Fry the cutlets in hot unsalted butter until golden brown.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Wheat + breadtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together209 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,373 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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
- Veal
- Forms the main body of the cutlet, cooking to a tender interior when fried briefly.
- Wheat flour
- Dry coating that helps the egg wash cling and gives a dry surface for browning.
- Eggs
- Liquid binder that holds the bread crumbs to the veal as a crust.
- Seasoned bread crumbs
- Outer layer that crisps and browns in the hot butter, forming the crust.
- Unsalted butter
- Frying fat that conducts heat for even cooking and adds browning and flavour.
The step that matters
Fry the cutlets in hot unsalted butter until golden brown.. If the butter is not hot enough, the coating absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisping. Butter also browns quickly because its milk solids can scorch, so heat should be moderate and steady.
“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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