Name: Egg-and-Bread-Crumb Sole or Cutlet
Ingredients: 1 sole or veal cutlet; 1 egg; 2 teaspoons boiling water; flour for dusting; bread crumbs

Why it works: Egg and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,662 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Egg-and-Bread-Crumb Sole or Cutlet

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Rub stale bread through a wire sieve to make fine bread crumbs.
Beat the egg thoroughly and add 2 teaspoons of boiling water to thin it.

Bread the cutlet

Dry the sole or cutlet and dust it lightly with flour.
Dip the sole or cutlet in the beaten egg, allowing excess to drain off.
Lightly place the sole or cutlet on the bread crumbs, sprinkling more on top.
Let it rest on the crumbs before frying in hot fat.

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.

Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,056 recipes

Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).
Flour + breadtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,383 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,845 recipes

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

Egg and flour 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

Sole or veal cutlet: Is the main protein that gets coated and fried, staying moist inside a crisp crust.
Egg: Binds the flour and bread crumbs to the cutlet so the coating adheres during frying.
Bread crumbs: Form the crisp, golden outer crust when fried in hot fat.

The step that matters

Let it rest on the crumbs before frying in hot fat.. Resting lets the egg set slightly so the crumb coating stays attached instead of falling off in the hot fat.

“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

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Oatmeal Bread51 recipes

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Egg-and-Bread-Crumb Sole or Cutlet