Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
To Dress Veal Cutlets
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Beat the cutlets with a chopper and cut them into medium-sized pieces.
Strew a mixture of breadcrumbs, chopped parsley, thyme, grated nutmeg, pepper, and coarse sea salt on each side of the cutlets.
Cook and serve
Broil the cutlets over a clear fire until cooked and nicely colored.
Serve with cullis sauce and ketchup, or with stewed mushrooms and cullis.
Optionally, arrange broiled bacon and fried oysters around the cutlets.
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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Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,099 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,057 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
-
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together34,122 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
-
Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,062 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
-
Thyme + nutmegtop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,907 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 cutlets
- Form the main body of the dish, cooking to a tender, browned meat once broiled.
- Breadcrumbs
- Coat the surface, helping the cutlets brown and form a crisp crust when broiled.
- Chopped parsley
- Adds fresh, green herbal aroma and flavor to the crumb coating.
- Thyme
- Adds savory, aromatic herbal flavor to the crumb coating.
- Grated nutmeg
- Adds warm, aromatic spice that complements the savory meat and crumbs.
The step that matters
Broil until cooked and nicely colored. Veal cutlets are thin and lean, so they dry out quickly over high heat. Watching for even browning while cooking through keeps the meat juicy and the crumb crust golden rather than burnt.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, parsley, thyme, pepper, sauce, ketchup, mushroom):
- Marjoramfits better
- Winter savoryfits better
- Tarragonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, parsley, thyme, pepper, sauce, ketchup, mushroom. 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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