Why it works: Lemon and watercress match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 579 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Veal Cutlet
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the veal
Get a 1½-pound slice of veal from the thick part of the leg.
Divide it into two pieces.
Pound the veal on a meat block until tender.
Cut the edges every half-inch to prevent curling.
Roll the veal in fine cracker crumbs.
Fry and make the gravy
Place it in a skillet with 2 tablespoons of butter.
Add another tablespoon of butter on top of the meat.
Fry for 1 minute without burning the butter.
Move the skillet to a cooler part of the stove.
Cook each side for 20 minutes until browned.
Transfer the cutlet to a heated platter.
Season lightly with salt and pepper.
In the same pan, add 1 teaspoon of flour and stir.
Pour in ½ cup of boiling water and cook.
Season with salt.
Pour the gravy over the cutlet.
Garnish with lemon slices.
Cook the second cutlet
For the second cutlet, dip it in a batter made of 1 tablespoon of flour, 1 heaping tablespoon of melted butter, and half a beaten egg.
Fry slowly.
Make gravy as directed for the first cutlet.
Add 1 teaspoon of lemon juice to the gravy.
Garnish with watercress.
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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Lemon + watercresstop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together579 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Flour + watercresstop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together340 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together983 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Veal + porktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,930 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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 and cooks to a tender, browned meat.
- Butter
- Fats the pan and browns the surface of the cutlet, adding richness to the gravy.
- Fine cracker crumbs
- Form a crisp, browned coating that protects the meat during frying.
- Flour
- Thickens the pan juices into a smooth gravy.
- Egg (in the method)
- Binds the batter for the second cutlet so it coats and sets when fried.
The step that matters
Fry for 1 minute without burning the butter. Butter burns at a lower temperature than many oils because its milk solids darken quickly. Burnt butter turns bitter and dark, so the pan should be hot enough to start browning but moved to cooler heat once the butter foams.
“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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