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Veal Cutlets a l’Italienne

Veal cutlets cooked in a sauce of shallots, mushrooms, wine, stock, herbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Veal Cutlets a l’Italienne

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Trim veal cutlets to a pear shape.

  2. Season both sides with salt and pepper.

  3. Baste cutlets with salad oil.

  4. Cover cutlets with paper.

  5. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until cooked.

Make the sauce

  1. Mince shallots and fry them in a little salad oil until browned.

  2. Mince mushrooms and parsley, then add them to the browned shallots.

  3. Pour in equal parts white wine and beef stock.

  4. Add a bunch of sweet herbs tied with a bay leaf and season with salt and pepper.

  5. Simmer for 20-30 minutes, then remove the herbs and bay leaf.

  6. Add butter rolled in flour and stir until thickened.

Serve

  1. Drain the cutlets.

  2. Arrange them in a circle on a hot dish and pour sauce in the center.

  3. Serve.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Shallot + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

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

  4. Mushroom + beeftop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal cutlets
Form the main body of the dish, cooking to tender meat under the paper cover.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, with flour, forms a roux that thickens it.
Flour
Combines with butter to thicken the sauce as it cooks.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the sauce as it simmers.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and body to the sauce.
Shallots
Browned in oil to build a savoury, sweet base for the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding butter rolled in flour. Flour must be fully incorporated into the butter and hot liquid, and stirred steadily, or it forms lumps instead of smoothly thickening the sauce.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pepper, shallot, mushroom, white wine, beef, butter):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pepper, shallot, mushroom, white wine, beef, butter. 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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