Name: Cutlets of Fowls, Partridges, or Pigeons.
Ingredients: 3 birds (fowl, partridge, or pigeon); 2 tablespoons clarified butter; 2 egg yolks; 1 cup fine bread crumbs; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper; ¼ teaspoon ground mace; butter for frying; sippets of bread (as needed)

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cutlets of Fowls, Partridges, or Pigeons.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

Remove the flesh from the breast and wing of the birds, yielding 6 large fillets.
Flatten additional strips of flesh to create at least 9 equal-sized cutlets.
Fry diamond-shaped slices of bread until dry. Set the fried slices aside.

Coat and fry

Dip cutlets in egg yolks mixed with clarified butter.
Coat cutlets with seasoned bread crumbs.
Heat butter in a pan. Fry the cutlets until light amber in color.

Serve

Arrange cutlets on the slices of bread. Pile the cutlets high.
Pour rich brown gravy around them.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Egg yolks: Bind the bread crumb coating to the cutlets and help it set and brown in the pan.
Clarified butter: Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the coating fry golden.
Fine bread crumbs: Form a crisp, browned outer crust around the tender meat.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets. Fry over steady heat so the crumb coating turns light amber and crisp before the thin meat dries out. Too hot and the coating over-browns or burns; too cool and it absorbs grease and turns soggy.

Swap the mace

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

Parsleyfits better
Nutmegfits better
Sagefits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, bread, 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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Oatmeal Bread51 recipes

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Cutlets of Fowls, Partridges, or Pigeons.