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Chicken Cutlets

Chicken cutlets are breaded and fried pieces of chicken served on toast with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chicken Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Season the pieces of cold chicken or turkey with salt and pepper.

  2. Dip the seasoned meat in melted butter, then let it cool.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat the meat in beaten egg.

  2. Coat the meat in fine bread crumbs.

  3. Fry in butter until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve on slices of hot toast with white or curry sauce poured around.

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

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

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

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

  3. Chicken + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,258 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cold chicken or turkey
Forms the main body of the cutlet and is the protein that is cooked and served.
Beaten egg
Acts as the glue that helps the bread crumbs adhere to the meat.
Fine bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried in butter.
Melted butter
Adds richness and moisture to the meat's surface before coating.

The step that matters

Fry in butter until golden brown. Frying over moderate heat browns the bread crumb coating through the Maillard reaction, which gives flavour and colour. Heat that is too high can scorch the crumbs before the coating is cooked and crisp.

“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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