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Veal Cutlets a LA Colbert

Veal cutlets cooked in oil and butter, finished with Madeira sauce and served with potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,843 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal Cutlets a LA Colbert

Ingredients

Directions

Fry the veal

  1. Trim the cutlets and fry them in a mixture of oil and butter.

  2. Add the chopped onion and fry lightly.

  3. Pour off any excess fat.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Add the Madeira sauce and cook gently until the cutlets are tender.

  2. Add parsley to the sauce.

  3. Pour the sauce over the cutlets.

  4. Serve on a potato border.

  5. Garnish with potatoes and fried bread.

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 + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Veal + parsleytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,766 recipes

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

  4. Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Onion and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 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

Fillet of veal
Forms the tender meat that is the main body of the dish.
Batter
Coats the cutlets so they brown and hold their shape while frying.
Salad oil
Conducts heat in the pan and helps the cutlets brown evenly.
Madeira sauce
Adds rich, wine-based flavour and moisture that the cutlets are cooked in.

The step that matters

Cooking the cutlets gently in the Madeira sauce. Veal fillet is lean and dries out or toughens if boiled or overcooked. Gentle simmering keeps the meat tender while the sauce reduces and flavours it.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, onion, sauce):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, 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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