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Grouse Cutlets

A dish of cooked grouse meat formed into cutlets, coated in egg and breadcrumbs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Grouse Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Remove all skin and bones from the grouse and chop the meat finely.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan, add the flour and cook for 2-3 minutes over medium heat.

  3. Gradually add the stock, stirring until it boils, then cook well.

  4. Add the highly flavored part from the back of the bird, then the chopped meat and seasoning.

  5. Transfer the mixture to a plate to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into cutlets.

  2. Dip the cutlets in egg, then coat them with breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry the cutlets in hot oil until golden brown, then drain them.

Serve

  1. Serve with a small piece of macaroni at the end of each cutlet, garnished with parsley.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

Grouse
Provides the main meat, which is chopped and bound into the cutlet filling.
Flour
Cooked with butter to form a roux that thickens the stock into a binding sauce.
Brown stock
Liquid that, once thickened, moistens the filling and adds savoury flavour.
Butter
Fat that enriches the roux and adds flavour to the filling.
Egg
Coats the cutlets so the breadcrumbs adhere and form a crisp crust.

The step that matters

Cool the filling fully before shaping. A warm, loose filling will not hold its shape and may crack or fall apart when coated and fried. Cooling lets the starch-thickened mixture firm up so the cutlets keep their form.

“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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