Skip to main content
Main

Chicken Cutlets

Chicken cutlets are breaded chicken pieces fried and served with mushroom puree and Espagnol sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Chicken Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bone the chicken and cut the meat into neat pieces for cutlets.

  2. In a bowl, mix the salt, ground mace, and cayenne pepper.

Coat and fry

  1. Coat the chicken pieces with the egg, then with the bread-crumbs.

  2. Heat the butter and frying fat in a pan over medium heat.

  3. Fry the cutlets until golden brown on both sides.

Serve

  1. Serve with mushroom puree and Espagnol sauce.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Bread + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the cutlets, providing the protein structure that sets when cooked.
Egg
Binds the bread-crumb coating to the chicken so it adheres during frying.
Bread-crumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust that browns during frying.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and helps the coating brown in the pan.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets until golden brown on both sides. Medium heat lets the coating brown and the chicken cook through without burning. Too high a heat scorches the crumbs before the meat is cooked inside.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, egg, butter, bread, mushroom, sauce, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, egg, butter, bread, mushroom, sauce, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesChicken BrothChicken Broth257 recipesChicken SoupChicken Soup156 recipesCreamed ChickenCreamed Chicken89 recipes