Skip to main content
Main

Plain Veal Cutlets

Veal cutlets dusted with flour, fried in butter, then simmered in gravy or boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plain Veal Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Trim the veal cutlets into proper shape and remove any bones.

  2. Beat the cutlets with a rolling pin until the fibers are broken.

  3. Dust the cutlets with flour to prevent gravy from escaping.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets in butter over medium heat for 12 to 15 minutes until amber brown and cooked through.

  2. Transfer the cutlets to a hot dish.

  3. Pour off excess fat from the pan.

  4. Add a slice of fresh butter and melt it.

  5. Stir in 2 teaspoons of flour. Cook until well-colored.

  6. Gradually add 1 cup of gravy or boiling water, 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Veal
Beating breaks the fibers and the cutlets cook through to a tender bite.
Flour
A light dusting helps hold the gravy on the cutlets and thickens the pan sauce when browned.
Butter
Frying in butter gives the cutlets browning and a rich flavor.
Gravy or boiling water
Liquid that deglazes the pan and forms the sauce with the browned flour.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour in the butter. The flour must cook until well-colored before liquid is added. Cooking it develops a nutty flavor and removes raw floury taste, and stirring continuously while adding the liquid prevents lumps.

“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.

More veal cutlets recipes

Breaded 34Fried 28Broiled 19Cracker-Crusted 8in Cream Sauce 6with Potatoes 6 See all 232 →

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes