Name: To Fry Veal Cutlets
Ingredients: Veal cutlets (about 4 cutlets, ½ inch thick); Butter or lard for frying; 1 egg, beaten; Bread crumbs; Chopped parsley; Salt; Pepper; Juice of 1 lemon; Thin slices of broiled bacon (for serving)

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Fry Veal Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Heat butter or lard in a pan over medium heat.
Dip each veal cutlet in the beaten egg, then coat with bread crumbs, parsley, salt, and pepper.

Cook and serve

Fry the cutlets slowly until they are light brown and cooked through.
For gravy, prepare as for fried steaks, adding lemon juice and skimming before serving.
Serve the cutlets with thin slices of broiled bacon placed alternately.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal cutlets: Form the main protein that is cooked through by slow frying.
Egg: Binds the bread crumb coating so it adheres to the cutlets while frying.
Bread crumbs: Form a crisp, golden coating that browns in the hot fat.
Butter or lard: Conducts heat to the cutlets and browns the coating through frying.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets slowly. Slow frying over medium heat cooks the thick cutlets through before the breadcrumb coating over-browns or burns. Too much heat scorches the outside while the centre stays raw.

“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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

Lemon Sauce236 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

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To Fry Veal Cutlets