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Chicken Cutlets a LA Francais

Chicken cutlets coated in parsley butter, beaten egg, and seasoned breadcrumbs, then fried until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Cutlets a LA Francais

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dip chicken slices in warm butter mixed with chopped parsley, then let them stand for a few minutes.

  2. Dip the chicken in beaten egg.

  3. Coat with bread crumbs mixed with salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg.

Cook

  1. Heat butter in a chafing dish and quickly brown the cutlets on both sides.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beaten egg
Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the chicken.
Bread crumbs
Forms a crisp outer coating that browns when fried.
Warm butter
Adds richness and moisture to the chicken and carries the parsley.
Butter (for frying)
Conducts heat to brown the coated cutlets and adds flavor.

The step that matters

Quickly brown the cutlets on both sides. Hot butter sets and browns the breadcrumb crust fast. If the pan is too cool or the cutlets sit too long, they absorb grease and turn soggy, while the chicken inside may stay underdone or dry out with extended cooking.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, butter, parsley, egg, bread, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, butter, parsley, egg, bread, pepper. 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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