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To Broil or Fry Pork Cutlets

Pork cutlets seasoned with pepper, cayenne, and sage, then broiled or fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Broil or Fry Pork Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Cut pork into ½ inch thick cutlets and trim into neat shapes.

  2. Remove some or all of the fat as desired.

Season and broil

  1. Sprinkle cutlets with pepper or cayenne.

  2. Broil over a moderate fire (350°F / 175°C) for 15 to 18 minutes.

  3. Sprinkle with fine salt just before serving.

Coat

  1. Dip cutlets in egg.

  2. Coat cutlets with bread crumbs mixed with minced sage before frying.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Bread + sagetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Loin of pork
Forms the main body of the dish as the meat that cooks through to a tender cutlet.
Egg
Acts as a binder that helps the bread crumbs adhere to the cutlets.
Bread crumbs
Form a coating that browns and crisps when cooked.
Minced sage
Adds an herbal aroma to the bread crumb coating.

The step that matters

Coat cutlets with bread crumbs mixed with minced sage before frying. The egg proteins set on heating and act as glue, so a thin, even egg dip lets the crumbs stick firmly. Excess egg or a heavy crumb layer can cause the coating to slide off or turn soggy instead of crisping.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, egg, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Sagethe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, egg, bread. 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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