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Minced Pork Cutlets

Minced pork cutlets served with apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 859 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Minced Pork Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Combine minced pork, shallots, salt, pepper, mustard, cayenne, sage, baked flour, pork gravy, and beaten egg in a bowl.

  2. Form the mixture into 5 or 6 small cutlets of equal size.

  3. Dredge the cutlets in baked flour.

Fry and make the apple sauce

  1. Heat plenty of boiling fat in a pan and fry the cutlets until pale brown, about 8 minutes.

  2. Combine apples, brown sugar, and brandy in a saucepan.

  3. Simmer the mixture for 45 minutes.

  4. Beat the apple mixture with a wooden spoon until smooth.

Serve

  1. Serve the cutlets arranged around the dish with the apple sauce in the center.

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. Shallot + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together859 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Shallot + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Shallot + sagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together181 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Mustard + sagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Roast pork
Forms the body of the cutlets and provides the savoury meaty flavour.
Egg
Binds the minced pork so the cutlets hold their shape while frying.
Apples
Cook down into a soft sauce that contrasts with the rich pork.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the savoury pork and the tart apples.
Baked flour
Dries the surface of the cutlets and helps them brown when fried.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets until pale brown. Fat that is not hot enough lets the cutlets soak up oil and turn greasy, while overheating browns the outside before the pork inside is cooked through. Keep the fat steadily hot and the cutlets evenly sized so they cook at the same rate.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, shallot, pepper, mustard, sage, flour, egg):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, shallot, pepper, mustard, sage, flour, egg. 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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