Name: Veal Cutlets
Ingredients: Veal cutlets (¾ inch thick); 1 egg yolk; Bread crumbs; Salt; Pepper; Parsley (for garnish); Bacon (thinly sliced, for garnish)

Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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

Ingredients

Directions

Beat the veal cutlets with a chopper or meat mallet.
Coat each cutlet with egg yolk and dredge in bread crumbs.
Heat oil in a pan and fry the cutlets until light brown.
Garnish with parsley and rolls of fried bacon 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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Bread + parsleytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,588 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,056 recipes

Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).