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Pork Cutlets

Breaded pork cutlets served with a light gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 cutlets

  1. Remove the skin from the pork cutlets and pound them with a pestle.

  2. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, sage, onion, and season with salt and pepper.

  3. Dip the cutlets in the beaten egg yolk, then coat with the bread crumb mixture.

Fry and make the gravy

  1. Heat lard in a pan and fry the cutlets until light brown, turning often.

  2. After frying, sprinkle a little flour into the pan drippings, stir, and bring to a boil.

  3. Pour the gravy over the cutlets before serving.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork cutlets
Provide the lean meat that is pounded thin and cooked through under the coating.
Egg yolk
Acts as a binder so the bread crumb coating sticks to the cutlets.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried in lard.
Flour
Thickens the pan drippings into a smooth gravy.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the coating.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets until light brown. Frying over steady heat and turning often browns the coating evenly while the thin pork cooks through. Too high a heat scorches the crumbs before the meat is done, and too low a heat leaves the coating greasy and pale.

Swap the onion

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

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

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