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Veal Cutlets

Veal cutlets are breaded veal strips browned and stewed in tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,377 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the veal

  1. Trim all fat, bone, and connective tissue from the veal slices and cut into strips.

  2. Roll the strips and skewer them in rounds.

  3. Dust with salt and pepper.

  4. Roll in bread crumbs and dip in beaten eggs.

Brown and stew

  1. Brown in a skillet.

  2. Make the tomato sauce by melting butter, adding tomato stock, salt, flour, cayenne pepper, and celery salt.

  3. Stew the cutlets in the sauce for 43 minutes.

  4. Add Worcestershire sauce if desired.

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. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Provides the main meat for the cutlets, which becomes tender after long stewing.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns in the skillet and helps hold the cutlets together.
Eggs
Bind the bread crumb coating to the veal so it stays attached during browning.
Tomato stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that the cutlets stew in, adding moisture and flavor.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and tomato stock into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the sauce, carrying flavor and smoothing its texture.

The step that matters

Browning the coated cutlets in the skillet. Browning the breaded coating before stewing builds colour and toasted flavour through the Maillard reaction. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the coating pale and bland, and the sauce cannot restore it.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, bread, egg, butter, tomato, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, bread, egg, butter, tomato, flour. 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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