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Egg Cutlets

Egg cutlets are fried patties made from boiled eggs mixed with a béchamel sauce, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Egg Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Shell and chop the hard boiled eggs coarsely.

  2. In a bowl, rub together the butter and flour to form a paste.

  3. Heat the milk in a double boiler until warm.

  4. Drop the paste into the warm milk and stir gently until it dissolves. Continue stirring until the sauce thickens and becomes smooth.

  5. Add the salt, cayenne pepper, onion juice, and mace, then cover and cook for 5 minutes.

  6. Stir in the prepared eggs and parsley, then remove from heat.

Shape and cool

  1. Spread the mixture on a buttered platter and let it cool completely.

  2. Flour your hands and mold spoonfuls of the mixture into cutlet shapes.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each cutlet into beaten egg, then roll in bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

  3. Serve with cream or tomato sauce.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Hard boiled eggs
Provide the bulk and body of the filling, setting firm as the mixture cools.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth sauce that holds the eggs together.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the paste that starts the sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens as the flour cooks.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust that browns when the cutlets are fried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool completely before shaping. A warm, soft sauce will not hold its shape and may slump or break apart. Chilling it firms the starch-thickened sauce so the cutlets keep their form in the hot fat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, flour, milk, pepper, onion, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, milk, pepper, onion, 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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