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Paprika Schnitzel

Veal cutlet served with a paprika-infused gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Paprika Schnitzel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Dip the veal cutlet in flour or cracker crumbs.

  2. Fry the cutlet in butter until cooked through.

Make the gravy

  1. Peel and slice the onions while the meat is frying.

  2. Once the meat is done, add the onions to the same pan and fry until golden brown.

  3. Stir in the flour with the onions and mix thoroughly.

  4. Add milk to the mixture to make gravy and cook until thickened.

  5. Mix in paprika until the gravy is slightly peppery.

Serve

  1. Pour the gravy over the meat and serve.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 cutlet
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through in butter.
Flour
Thickens the onion mixture into a gravy as it cooks with the milk.
Onions
Soften and turn golden, adding sweetness and body to the gravy.
Milk
Liquid that cooks with the flour to form a thickened gravy.
Paprika
Adds a mildly peppery, aromatic flavour to the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the onions to golden brown before adding flour. Browning the onions well develops sweet, deeper flavour that the gravy depends on. Adding flour and milk too early leaves the gravy tasting raw and pale.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, butter, 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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