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Pork Cutlets Aux Cornichons

Pork cutlets served with a sauce of broth, vinegar, and sliced gherkins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Pork Cutlets Aux Cornichons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Season the pork cutlets with salt and pepper.

  2. Dip the cutlets in beaten eggs, then coat with breadcrumbs.

Fry and make the sauce

  1. Heat lard or butter in a frying pan and fry the cutlets slowly until cooked.

  2. Keep the cutlets warm on a dish.

  3. Pour some fat from the pan, add flour, and mix well.

  4. Moisten with broth or water and add vinegar, salt, pepper, and sliced gherkins.

Serve

  1. Warm the cutlets gently in the sauce, then serve on a dish with sauce poured over.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Pork cutlets
Provide the main meat, which cooks through during slow frying.
Eggs
Bind the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the cutlets.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating on the outside of the cutlets.
Flour
Thickens the pan fat into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sharpens the sauce and balances the richness of the fat.
Gherkins
Add tangy, sour flavor and texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets slowly. Slow frying cooks the pork through while the breadcrumb coating browns gradually without burning. Too much heat leaves the outside dark and the centre undercooked.

“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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