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Pork Cutlets

Breaded pork cutlets fried and served with apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pork Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Cut the pork from the leg and remove the skin.

  2. Trim and beat the cutlets.

  3. Sprinkle the cutlets with salt and pepper.

Bread the cutlets

  1. Prepare the beaten egg in a pan.

  2. On a flat dish, mix the bread crumbs, minced onion, and sage.

  3. Heat lard or drippings in a frying pan until boiling.

  4. Dip each cutlet in the egg.

  5. Coat each cutlet with the bread crumb mixture.

Fry and make the gravy

  1. Fry the cutlets for 20 to 30 minutes, turning them often.

  2. After frying, remove the cutlets and skim the gravy.

  3. Dredge the cutlets in a little flour.

  4. Boil briefly.

  5. Pour the gravy around the cutlets on the dish.

Serve

  1. Serve with apple 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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork leg cutlets
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meat for frying.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs stick to the cutlets.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.
Minced onion
Adds aroma and savory flavor to the crumb coating.
Sage
Adds herbal aroma to the crumb coating.
Flour
Thickens the gravy left from frying.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets. Frying over steady heat for a long period needs attention, because the coating can burn before the pork is cooked through, or stay pale and greasy if the fat is not hot enough when they go in.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Avocadofits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, egg, bread, onion, sage, 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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