Skip to main content
Main

Plain Veal Cutlets

A simple dish of veal cutlets fried and served with a butter‑flour gravy.

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

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Plain Veal Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Trim veal cutlets into proper shape and beat them with a rolling pin until the fibers are broken.

  2. Dust the cutlets with flour to prevent gravy escape.

Fry and make the sauce

  1. Fry the cutlets in a pan over medium heat for 12 to 15 minutes until amber brown and cooked through.

  2. Transfer cutlets to a hot dish and pour off excess fat from the pan.

  3. Add a slice of fresh butter to the pan and melt it.

  4. Stir in 2 teaspoons of flour and cook until well-colored.

  5. Gradually add 1 cup of gravy or boiling water, then season with pepper, coarse sea salt, and lemon juice or pickle.

  6. Bring the sauce to a boil and pour it over the cutlets.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Veal + hamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,264 recipes

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Veal cutlets
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender when its fibers are broken by beating.
Flour
Dusting coats the cutlets and helps hold in juices, while flour in the sauce thickens it.
Fresh butter
Adds fat and rich flavor to the pan and sauce.
Gravy or boiling water
Liquid that dissolves the browned pan residue and forms the sauce base.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour in the butter. Cooking the flour in the butter until well-colored removes its raw taste and builds color and flavor before liquid is added. Adding the liquid too early can leave lumps and a pasty taste.

“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.

More veal cutlets recipes

Breaded 34Fried 28Broiled 19Cracker-Crusted 8in Cream Sauce 6with Potatoes 6 See all 232 →

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes