Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Paprika Schnitzel
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and fry
Dust veal with coarse sea salt and pepper.
Fry in butter for about 15 minutes.
Make the sauce
Pour in sour cream and season generously with paprika.
Cook until the sauce is smooth and thick.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,049 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,381 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together21,449 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 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 dish and browns in the butter.
- Butter
- Fat for frying that browns the veal and adds flavor.
- Sour cream
- Adds richness and tang, and thickens into the sauce as it cooks.
- Paprika
- Gives the sauce its color and a warm, smoky aroma.
The step that matters
Keep the sour cream sauce at a gentle heat. Sour cream can curdle or split when it boils hard, leaving a grainy sauce. Cooking it over moderate heat while stirring keeps it smooth and lets it thicken evenly.
“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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