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Breaded Cutlets

Breaded cutlets are fried cutlets coated in egg and breadcrumbs, simmered with butter, onion, flour, gravy, vinegar, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Breaded Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Bread the cutlets

  1. Dip the cutlets into the beaten egg seasoned with salt, pepper, and sage.

  2. Coat the cutlets with rolled cracker or bread crumbs.

  3. Fry the cutlets slowly until thoroughly cooked.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add the cutlets and chopped onion.

  2. Fry until light brown, then add flour, gravy, salt, and pepper.

  3. Stir in vinegar and mustard, and simmer gently for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with mashed potatoes.

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the cracker or bread crumb coating to the cutlets so it adheres while frying.
Rolled cracker or bread crumbs
Forms a crisp, browned coating that protects the cutlets during frying.
Butter
Adds fat for frying and richness to the pan browning and sauce.
Onion
Adds aromatic flavour and sweetness as it browns in the pan.
Flour
Thickens the pan liquids into a smooth sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the gravy and balances richness.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets slowly until thoroughly cooked. Slow frying lets heat reach the centre of the cutlet before the crumb coating browns too deeply, so the meat cooks through without burning on the outside.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, sage, bread, butter, flour, vinegar. 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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