Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Veal Cutlets
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cutlets
Dredge the cutlets with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Dip them in fine cracker crumbs, then in beaten egg, and again in the crumbs.
Cook and serve
Sauté in hot fat from salt pork or beef drippings.
Brown well on both sides and place on a hot platter.
Surround with tomato or Béarnaise sauce, or make gravy by adding flour to the fat.
Add stock and season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice, or season with butter, salt, and pepper, and serve with tartar sauce.
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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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Veal + porktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,930 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,933 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together15,338 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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 browns and becomes tender when sautéed.
- Fine cracker crumbs
- Form a crisp, browned coating on the outside of the cutlets.
- Egg
- Binds the cracker crumbs so the coating adheres to the cutlets.
- Flour
- Thickens the pan fat into a gravy when added to the drippings.
- Stock
- Adds liquid and savory flavor to the pan gravy.
The step that matters
Brown well on both sides. Browning develops flavor and a crisp crust through the Maillard reaction. Pale cutlets taste flat and the coating can stay soft, so the pan needs enough hot fat.
“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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