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Cold Meat Cutlets

Cold meat cutlets made with flour, butter, breadcrumbs, and stock, then fried and served with potatoes and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Meat Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Chop the cold meat and onion finely.

  3. Mix the flour with the chopped meat and onion.

  4. Gradually add the stock, stirring until it boils.

  5. Cook well, then allow to cool.

Shape and coat

  1. Shape the mixture into cutlets.

  2. Dip each cutlet in egg, then coat with breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

  2. Place a piece of macaroni at the end of each cutlet.

  3. Serve arranged around a center of potatoes with gravy.

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 + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Flour
Thickens the stock into a binding paste that holds the cutlets together.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the mixture and helps the filling bind smoothly.
Cold meat
Forms the main body of the cutlet and gives it its savoury flavour.
Egg
Acts as a glue so the breadcrumbs stick to the outside of each cutlet.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.
Stock or gravy
Adds moisture and flavour, and thickens with the flour into a binding mixture.

The step that matters

Cook the stock and flour until it boils, then cool fully. The flour must be cooked through with the stock to thicken and set the mixture; if the base is not cooked well, the filling stays soft and the cutlets may break apart when shaped and fried.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, pepper, meat, egg. 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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