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Fricassee of Cutlets

A fricassee of veal cutlets simmered in gravy with cream, egg yolks, lemon, and mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,446 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fricassee of Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat a pan without allowing it to color.

  2. Stir in the flour until well mixed with the cutlets.

  3. Gradually pour in enough boiling veal gravy to almost cover the cutlets.

  4. Stew gently for 15-16 minutes or until tender.

  5. Add mace, salt, cream, egg yolks, and lemon juice.

  6. Stew strips of lemon rind in the gravy if desired.

  7. Add mushroom buttons 20 minutes before serving.

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. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Cream + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,500 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Flour
Thickens the gravy so it coats the cutlets.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the sauce as it sets gently with heat.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Mushroom buttons
Add earthy flavor and a tender, meaty bite.

The step that matters

Add the egg yolks and lemon juice off the boil. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat; if the sauce boils after they go in, they can scramble and turn grainy. Keeping the sauce barely simmering keeps it smooth.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, veal, cream, egg, mushroom):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, veal, cream, egg, mushroom. 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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