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Pork Cutlets

Breaded pork cutlets fried in lard, served with mashed potatoes and sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pork Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cutlets from the loin or fore-loin of pork and trim them like mutton cutlets.

  2. Scrape the top part of the bone.

  3. Brush the cutlets with egg.

  4. Sprinkle the cutlets with breadcrumbs mixed with minced sage, salt, and pepper, pressing the crumbs down.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan.

  2. Fry the cutlets until light brown on both sides.

  3. Remove the cutlets from the pan.

  4. Place the cutlets before the fire to dry.

  5. Serve the cutlets on mashed potatoes with your choice of sauce, such as tomato sauce or sauce piquante.

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

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

  2. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Sage + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork loin or fore-loin
Forms the main body of the cutlet and provides the meat that is cooked through.
Egg
Acts as a sticky binder so the breadcrumbs adhere to the cutlet.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.
Minced sage
Adds aromatic, herbal flavour to the breadcrumb coating.
Lard
Conducts heat in the frying pan and encourages even browning of the coating.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets until light brown on both sides. Frying over steady heat browns the breadcrumb coating and cooks the pork through. Too high a heat scorches the crumbs before the meat is done, while too low a heat leaves the coating greasy and pale.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, egg, pepper, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Sagethe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, egg, pepper, butter. 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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