Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Veal Cutlets with Vermicelli
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cutlets
Remove all fat from the veal cutlets, leaving the small rib.
Season the cutlets and dip them in melted butter, then coat with breadcrumbs.
Mix grated cheese with an equal amount of breadcrumbs and coat the cutlets again.
Let the cutlets sit for two hours.
Fry and cook the pasta
Fry the cutlets in plenty of butter until golden brown.
Boil the vermicelli in salted water until cooked, then drain.
Mix the cooked vermicelli with tomato sauce.
Serve
Arrange the vermicelli in the center of a serving platter and place the cutlets around it.
Serve hot.
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.
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Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cheese + tomatotop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,896 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,469 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Veal + tomatotop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together709 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
- Veal cutlets
- Forms the main body of the dish, cooked until tender under a golden crust.
- Breadcrumbs
- Form a crisp, golden coating that protects the meat while it fries.
- Grated cheese
- Adds savory flavor and helps the second coating brown and crisp.
- Vermicelli
- Provides a soft, starchy base that soaks up the tomato sauce.
- Tomato sauce
- Adds moisture, acidity and savory flavor to the pasta.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and helps the breadcrumbs adhere to the cutlets.
The step that matters
Frying the cutlets in plenty of butter until golden brown. Frying in enough hot fat browns the breadcrumb coating through the Maillard reaction while cooking the veal through. Too little fat or heat leaves the coating pale, greasy or soggy.
Swap the tomato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, butter, cheese, sauce):
- Tomatothe original
- Onionfits about as well
- Mustardfits about as well
- Capsicumfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, butter, cheese, sauce. 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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