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Veal Cutlets, a LA Milanaise

Veal cutlets cooked in a creamy tomato gravy with onions, served with sliced tomatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,633 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Veal Cutlets, a LA Milanaise

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the veal

  1. Quickly brown the veal cutlets in hot lard.

  2. Remove the cutlets from the pan.

Make the gravy

  1. Thicken the hot lard with flour, stirring until it browns.

  2. Pour in enough water to create a gravy with the consistency of cream.

  3. Fry the finely minced onions in butter and add them to the gravy.

Simmer

  1. Return the veal cutlets to the pan and surround them with sliced tomatoes.

  2. Season to taste and simmer gently for about two hours, or until the veal is tender.

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. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Veal + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,841 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Main protein that becomes tender during long gentle simmering.
Flour
Thickens the lard into a browned, gravy-like base.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour when frying the onions.
Sliced tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture to the gravy around the cutlets.

The step that matters

Simmering gently until the veal is tender. Veal cutlets are lean and become tough if boiled hard. A gentle simmer breaks down connective tissue slowly, keeping the meat moist while it tenderises over the long cooking time.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, flour, butter, tomato):

  1. Okrafits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, butter, tomato. 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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