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Pork Cutlets

Pork cutlets served with mashed potatoes and a mustard gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pork Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Prepare the pork by removing the bone if necessary.

Fry the cutlets

  1. Dip the pork in egg, coat with breadcrumbs, and fry until golden.

Make the gravy

  1. For the gravy, fry the chopped onion in butter until soft.

  2. Add flour and cook for a minute, then stir in mustard and stock.

  3. Simmer for 10 to 20 minutes, skim, season with salt and pepper, and strain.

Serve

  1. Serve the cutlets on a bed of mashed potatoes.

  2. Pour gravy around the cutlets.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Helps the breadcrumbs adhere to the pork so the coating stays on while frying.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating when fried, adding texture to the cutlets.
Butter
Fat for frying the onion and adds richness and flavour to the gravy.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it cooks with the butter and onion.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the gravy, adding savoury flavour.
Mashed potatoes
Provide a soft, starchy bed that holds the cutlets and soaks up gravy.

The step that matters

Frying the coated cutlets until golden. Frying over a steady heat browns the breadcrumb coating through the Maillard reaction while the pork cooks through. Too hot and the coating burns before the centre is done; too cool and it absorbs oil and turns greasy.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, egg, potato, onion, butter, flour, 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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