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Cheese Cutlets

Cheese cutlets are panada-coated cutlets of macaroni and cheese, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cheese Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the panada

  1. Melt the butter, add flour, and gradually stir in the milk until thickened to make a panada.

  2. Add the cooked chopped macaroni, grated cheese, and seasonings to the panada and mix well.

  3. Spread the mixture evenly on a plate and let it cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Once cool, divide into equal portions and shape into cutlets.

  2. Dip each cutlet in beaten egg, then coat with breadcrumbs.

  3. Place a small piece of uncooked macaroni at one end of each cutlet.

Fry

  1. Fry in hot oil at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Enriches the panada and adds richness and flavour to the cutlets.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a panada that binds the cutlet mixture together.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so it thickens into a smooth, spreadable base.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and helps the mixture hold together as it cools.
Egg
Coats the cutlets so the breadcrumbs adhere and form a golden crust.
Cooked macaroni
Provides bulk and a soft, chewy texture inside the cutlet.

The step that matters

Let the panada cool fully before shaping. A warm panada is soft and sticky, so cutlets shaped from it may slump or split in the hot oil. Cooling firms the starch-thickened mixture so it holds its shape and coats evenly.

“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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