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San Francisco Chicken Cutlets

Chicken cutlets coated with a paste of minced meat, eggs, chestnuts, breadcrumbs, and spices, then stewed with broth and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Chestnut and shallot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 52 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

San Francisco Chicken Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove the breasts and white meat from the chicken or turkey, reserving the breasts for cutlets.

  2. Mince the remaining meat and mix in the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, boiled chestnuts, and bread crumbs.

  3. Pound the mixture to a paste and press it through a colander.

  4. Flavor with nutmeg, roasted powdered parsley, grated shallot juice, essence of celery, salt, and pepper.

  5. Add enough rich fresh cream to bind the mixture together.

Assemble and stew

  1. Spread the mince evenly and about ½ inch thick on the chicken breasts.

  2. Dot the chicken with equal amounts of tongue, ham, and truffles.

  3. Place in a chafing dish with space between each piece and add a lump of fresh butter.

  4. Stew slowly, adding chicken broth to prevent burning.

Serve

  1. Serve very hot, garnished with parsley, truffles, and roasted chestnuts.

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. Chestnut + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Chestnut + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken breasts or turkey white meat
Forms the base of each cutlet and gives the dish its main body.
Egg yolks
Bind the mince into a smooth paste and add richness.
Boiled chestnuts
Add a soft, starchy texture to the mince.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mince hold its shape.
Rich fresh cream
Adds moisture and softness so the mixture binds together.
Fresh butter
Adds fat and richness as the cutlets stew.

The step that matters

Stew slowly, adding chicken broth to prevent burning. Low, slow heat cooks the chicken gently so it stays moist, while added liquid keeps the butter and cream from scorching on the base of the chafing dish.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, chestnut, bread, nutmeg, parsley, shallot):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, chestnut, bread, nutmeg, parsley, shallot. 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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