Name: Curried Veal Chops
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon curry powder; 2 teaspoons coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon prepared mustard; a dash of cayenne pepper; 1 teaspoon epicurean sauce; olive oil (enough to make a paste); 2 veal chops; 1 beaten egg; bread crumbs for coating

Why it works: Mustard and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,950 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Curried Veal Chops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the chops

In a bowl, mix curry powder, coarse sea salt, mustard, cayenne, epicurean sauce, and enough olive oil to form a paste.
Spread the paste on both sides of the veal chops.

Coat and fry

Dip the chops in the beaten egg.
Roll the chops in bread crumbs.
Fry the coated chops in a chafing dish until golden brown.

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.

Mustard + olivetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,950 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Olive + breadtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,091 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,263 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Mustard + saucetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,120 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal chops: The main protein that the coating surrounds and that cooks through during frying.
Beaten egg: Acts as a binder so the bread crumbs stick to the chops.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp coating that browns during frying.
Curry powder: Supplies the main spiced flavour of the paste.
Prepared mustard: Adds sharp, tangy flavour and helps the paste cling to the meat.

The step that matters

Frying the coated chops until golden brown. The coating must be fully set and browned without burning. Too much heat browns the crumbs before the chops cook through, while too little leaves the coating pale, soggy and greasy.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, sauce, olive, veal, egg, bread):

Capsicumfits better
Tomatofits better
Asparagusfits better
Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sauce, olive, veal, egg, bread. 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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Oatmeal Bread51 recipes

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Curried Veal Chops