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Prussian Cutlets

A dish of meat cutlets made from diced lean meat, fat, bread crumbs, onion, nutmeg, and egg yolk, fried and served with vegetables and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Prussian Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Cut the meat and fat into small dice.

  2. Mix the meat with salt, pepper, bread crumbs, onion, nutmeg, and egg yolk.

  3. Shape the mixture into portions the size of an egg and form them into cutlets.

  4. Insert a small piece of bone at one end of each cutlet.

Coat and fry

  1. Brush the cutlets with beaten egg.

  2. Coat the cutlets with grated bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the cutlets in hot fat over low heat until browned, about 10 minutes.

  4. Brush the cutlets with glaze.

Serve

  1. Arrange the cutlets in a circle on a hot dish.

  2. Place a mound of hot cooked vegetables in the center.

  3. Serve the cutlets with gravy or 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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  4. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Lean meat
Forms the body of the cutlet and gives it its savory flavor.
Fat
Adds moisture and richness so the cutlets stay juicy while cooking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture so it holds its shape.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture and adds richness to hold the cutlet together.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets over low heat. Low heat lets the interior cook through gently while the crumb coating browns slowly. Too much heat can scorch the outside before the centre is cooked.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, bread, nutmeg, egg, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, bread, nutmeg, egg, tomato. 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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