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Cotelettes Parisiennes a I’Ecarlate

A dish of ox tongue cutlets mixed with chicken, ham, suet, panade, and eggs, seasoned and steamed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 34,122 recipes mention both. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Cotelettes Parisiennes a I’Ecarlate

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Cut the tongue into eight to ten slices and shape them like cutlets.

  2. Prepare a stiff forcemeat mixture with the remnants of tongue, chicken, ham, suet, panade, and eggs.

  3. Pound the mixture.

  4. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

  5. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley.

Mold and steam

  1. Butter small cutlet molds.

  2. Fill the molds with the forcemeat.

  3. Steam the filled molds in the oven.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,398 recipes

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

  4. Chicken + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together6,031 recipes

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

  5. Chicken + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together2,449 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked ox-tongue
Provides the main meaty flavour and the bulk of the cutlets.
Raw chicken meat
Gives the forcemeat its body and a tender, sliceable texture when cooked.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set when heated, holding the cutlet together.
Panade
Adds moisture and keeps the forcemeat light and tender rather than dry.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the forcemeat moist and rich in mouthfeel.
Cooked ham or bacon
Adds savoury, smoky flavour to the forcemeat.

The step that matters

Steaming the filled molds. Egg proteins set with gentle heat. Too much heat or too long a cook makes the forcemeat tough, rubbery, or pocked with holes, so it should cook gently until just set.

Flavor stand-ins for the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, meat, ham, egg, pepper, tomato, sauce):

  1. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Celeryabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Garlicabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, meat, ham, egg, pepper, tomato, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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