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Chicken Cutlets

Chicken cutlets made with flour, butter, stock, cream, egg, and chopped chicken.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓

Chicken Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, cook the flour and butter over medium heat until combined.

  2. Add the stock and cream, stirring until smooth.

  3. Remove from heat and mix in the beaten egg and chopped chicken.

  4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Shape and bake

  1. Let the mixture cool, then form it into cutlets.

  2. Dip each cutlet in egg and then coat with bread crumbs.

  3. Place the cutlets on a baking sheet and bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,958 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

Flour
Thickens the stock and cream into a binding base for the cutlets.
Butter
Cooks with the flour to form a roux, adding richness and flavor.
Stock
Provides liquid that gelatinizes with the flour into a smooth sauce.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, softening the mixture and keeping it tender.
Egg
Binds the chicken mixture together and helps the coating adhere.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before shaping. A hot, loose mixture cannot hold its shape. Cooling lets the starch set and the egg firm up, so the cutlets keep their form in the pan and oven.

“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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