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Beef Cutlet Sauté

A quick sauté of a beef cutlet with butter, parsley, pepper, and sea salt, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Cutlet Sauté

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the cutlet as for broiling.

Sauté

  1. Heat a small frying pan and add the dissolved butter.

  2. Place the cutlet in the pan and cook gently for 30 seconds, then turn it and cook for another 30 seconds.

  3. Continue turning until the cutlet is done.

  4. If desired, sprinkle chopped parsley on the upper side when last turned.

Serve

  1. Transfer the cutlet to a very hot plate and pour any pan gravy over it.

  2. Serve immediately while hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

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

  4. Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef cutlet
Is the main protein, which firms and browns on the hot pan surface as it cooks.
Butter
Conducts heat into the cutlet and adds richness and browning flavor to the surface.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green aroma and a little color to the finished cutlet.

The step that matters

Cooking gently, then turning. Turning the cutlet at short intervals and cooking gently helps it heat through evenly, so the outside does not burn before the centre is done.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, butter, pepper. 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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