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Veal Cutlets

Veal cutlets made from ground veal, breadcrumbs, and egg, fried and served with mushroom or oyster sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,626 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Combine ground veal and thick white sauce in a bowl.

  2. Add minced onion if desired.

  3. Mold the mixture into a pear shape, then flatten to 1 inch thick.

  4. Dip each cutlet in breadcrumbs, then in beaten egg, and again in breadcrumbs.

  5. Insert a piece of spaghetti into the small end of each cutlet to resemble a bone.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a pan and fry the cutlets until golden brown.

  2. Serve with mushroom or oyster 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. Onion + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,626 recipes

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

  2. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

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

  4. Sauce + oniontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + mushroomtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,480 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and onion barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 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

Ground veal
Forms the main body of the cutlet and provides its meaty texture.
Thick white sauce
Adds moisture and binds the veal so the cutlet holds its shape.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.
Egg
Acts as a glue that helps the breadcrumbs adhere to the cutlet.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. Breadcrumbs brown through Maillard browning only with enough hot oil. Oil that is too cool lets the coating soak up grease and turn soggy, while oil that is too hot browns the outside before the veal inside is cooked through.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, sauce, egg, mushroom):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, sauce, egg, mushroom. 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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