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Veal Cutlets From the Fillet or Leg

Breaded veal cutlets fried in lard and served in a curry‑spiced gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Cutlets From the Fillet or Leg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Remove the bone from the veal flank and cut slices about ½ inch thick.

  2. Beat the egg yolks until light.

  3. Mix grated bread with pepper, coarse sea salt, pounded nutmeg, and chopped parsley.

  4. Lightly beat the veal slices and wash one side with egg.

  5. Cover the egg‑washed side with the bread mixture, pressing it on with a knife.

  6. Let the cutlets stand to dry slightly.

  7. Turn the cutlets gently and repeat the egg wash and breading on the other side.

Fry and stew

  1. Heat lard in a pan until boiling and fry the cutlets until light brown.

  2. Prepare gravy and season it with curry powder, wine, and lemon pickle.

  3. Thicken the gravy with butter and brown flour.

  4. Drain excess lard from the cutlets and place them in the gravy.

  5. Stew the cutlets for 15 to 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with thin slices of lemon.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Veal flank or leg
Forms the main body of the cutlet, cooked tender in the gravy.
Egg yolks
Act as a binder so the grated bread crumb coating adheres to the veal.
Grated bread
Forms a crisp, browned crumb coating when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the gravy, giving it a smoother texture.
Brown flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the cutlets.
Lard
Fat for frying that browns the breaded coating.

The step that matters

Frying the breaded cutlets until light brown. Heating the lard until it is boiling before frying sears the coating quickly so it crisps and sticks; if the fat is too cool, the crumbs absorb grease and separate from the veal.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, bread, pepper, parsley, wine, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, bread, pepper, parsley, wine, lemon. 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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