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A cutlet with a potato border baked with a lemon, nutmeg, and spice sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper 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 ↓

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Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Flatten the cutlets with a heavy knife dipped in cold water.

  2. Butter a baking dish and lay the cutlets in the dish.

  3. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the cutlets.

  4. Grate a small amount of nutmeg on each cutlet.

  5. Sprinkle pepper and salt on the cutlets.

  6. Butter a sheet of paper large enough to cover the cutlets and set aside.

Make the potato border

  1. Rub the warm cooked potatoes through a sieve for the potato border.

  2. Mix in ½ cup of butter, the egg yolk, and season with pepper and salt.

  3. Form the mixture into a smooth ball.

  4. Roll the ball out to about 12 inches long.

  5. Shape it into a round border with a hole in the middle on a well-buttered baking sheet.

  6. Flatten the top slightly.

  7. Brush the top with the beaten egg.

  8. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown and keep hot until needed.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the milk with mace, cayenne, lemon peel, and the skinned onion for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Melt ½ cup of butter in a saucepan.

  4. Add 1 ounce of flour and stir until smooth.

  5. Gradually add the seasoned milk while stirring continuously.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the structure of the border, becoming firm and holding its shape once cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the potato border and forms the base of the sauce.
Egg yolk
Binds the potato mixture so it holds together as a smooth, shapeable dough.
Egg
Brushed on top, it helps the border brown to a golden colour in the oven.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, which thickens when combined with the flour roux.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter into a roux that gives the sauce its body.

The step that matters

Gradually add the seasoned milk while stirring continuously. Adding liquid to a hot roux all at once can cause lumps. Slow addition with constant stirring lets the starch disperse evenly so the sauce becomes smooth as it thickens.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lemon, nutmeg, pepper, potato, egg, milk):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, nutmeg, pepper, potato, egg, milk. 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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