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Stewed Cutlets

A dish of browned cutlets simmered in milk with salt, pepper, parsley, and optional onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Stewed Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dredge the nearly-cut chops in flour.

  2. Heat a saucepan and add the chops, browning them.

  3. Pour in 1½ cups of milk, add salt, pepper, and parsley.

  4. Simmer slowly for 2½ hours.

  5. If desired, add 4 or 5 onions for extra flavor.

  6. Transfer to a casserole dish for improved flavor.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Chops
Provide the meat that is browned and then becomes tender during the long, slow simmer.
Flour
Coats the chops so they brown well and help thicken the milk into a sauce.
Milk
Forms the creamy liquid that the chops simmer in, adding moisture and a mild sweetness.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly for 2½ hours. A gentle, low simmer lets connective tissue in the chops break down slowly, so the meat becomes tender. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and make the milk likely to scorch or curdle.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, pepper, parsley):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, pepper, parsley. 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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