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Pork Cutlets

Pork cutlets are breaded and fried pork pieces served with mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Pork Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Cut the cutlets from the loin or fore-loin of pork and scrape the top part of the bone.

  2. Brush the cutlets with egg, then sprinkle with breadcrumbs mixed with minced sage, salt, and pepper.

  3. Drop a little clarified butter on the cutlets and press the crumbs down firmly.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan, then add the cutlets and fry until light brown on both sides.

  2. Remove the cutlets and place them before the fire to dry.

  3. Serve the cutlets on a bed of mashed potatoes with your choice of sauce, such as tomato sauce or pickled gherkins.

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 + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Sage + potatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork loin or fore-loin
Forms the meat base of the cutlets, cooking to a tender, juicy bite when fried.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumb coating sticks to the meat.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust during frying.
Sage
Adds a savoury, aromatic flavour to the breadcrumb coating.
Lard
Conducts heat in the pan and helps the coating brown evenly.

The step that matters

Pressing the crumbs down firmly. If the crumbs are not pressed onto the cutlet, they can loosen and fall off during frying, leaving bare meat that browns unevenly and dries out.

Swap the sage

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

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

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