Why it works: Peas and mushroom work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 890 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Veal Cutlets
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut veal into ½ inch thick cutlets and flatten to the same size.
Dust cutlets with flour, dip in beaten egg, and coat with breadcrumbs.
Fry and serve
Arrange cutlets in a frying basket and fry in boiling lard for 7 minutes.
Serve on an entree dish with alternate slices of fried bacon and cooked vegetables.
Accompany with White Puree of Mushroom or Brown Sauce and a squeeze of lemon.
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.
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Peas + mushroomtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together890 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Peas + lemontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,005 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,446 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
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Mushroom + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,633 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 cutlets
- Provide the main body of the dish, cooking to a tender, juicy interior when fried.
- Egg
- Binds the flour and breadcrumbs to the veal so the coating adheres during frying.
- Breadcrumbs
- Form a crisp, golden coating when fried in hot fat.
- Lard
- Conducts heat for frying and browns the breadcrumb coating.
The step that matters
Fry in boiling lard for 7 minutes. Hot fat sets and browns the breadcrumb coating quickly, so it crisps before the veal overcooks. If the fat is not hot enough, the coating absorbs grease and turns soggy.
Swap the peas
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, flour, egg, mushroom, lemon):
- Chestnutfits better
- Walnutfits about as well
- Pistachiofits about as well
- Peasthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against veal, flour, egg, mushroom, lemon. 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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