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Veal Cutlets a LA Francaise

Veal cutlets cooked with onions, mushrooms, tomato, parsley, brandy, and simmered in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Veal Cutlets a LA Francaise

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If using rib chops, remove the backbone and cut the ribs short; if using leg slices, cut each into 4 pieces.

  2. Season the meat with salt and pepper.

Brown

  1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan.

  2. If using button onions, add them and cook for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Add the cutlets to the pan and cook until browned on both sides.

Simmer and serve

  1. Pour off the oil and gradually add the water.

  2. Stir in the tomato, mushrooms, parsley, and brandy.

  3. Cover the frying pan and let the cutlets simmer for 30 minutes.

  4. Serve very hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,719 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Veal cutlets
Provide the main meat, which browns and becomes tender during the covered simmer.
Strained tomato
Adds acidity and body to the braising liquid, building a sauce as it simmers.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture that blends into the simmering sauce.
Button onions
Soften and turn sweet when cooked in the oil before the liquid is added.
Brandy
Adds aromatic depth to the sauce as it cooks down.

The step that matters

Browning the cutlets. Searing the meat in hot oil before adding liquid creates browned flavor through the Maillard reaction. Pale, steamed cutlets will taste flat in the finished sauce.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, mushroom, tomato, parsley, brandy, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, mushroom, tomato, parsley, brandy, pepper. 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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