Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Veal Cutlets, a LA Fried Oysters
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Dry the veal cutlets with a towel and season with salt.
Set up three dishes: one with the beaten egg, one with the rolled crackers, and one for the cutlets.
Coat and fry
Dip each cutlet in the egg, then coat with the rolled crackers.
Heat enough lard or butter in a skillet to nearly cover the cutlets.
Fry the cutlets until golden brown.
Make the gravy
To make a rich gravy, add a little boiling water to the skillet after the meat is done.
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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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,381 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
-
Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,845 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Veal cutlets
- The main meat, which the coating surrounds and which cooks through during frying.
- Egg
- Binds the cracker crumbs to the cutlet so the coating adheres during frying.
- Crackers
- Form the crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
- Lard or butter
- Conducts heat for frying and adds fat that helps the coating brown.
The step that matters
Fry the cutlets until golden brown. The coating needs enough hot fat to brown evenly. If the fat is too cool, the crumbs absorb it and turn greasy; if too hot, they burn before the meat is cooked through.
“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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