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Chicken Cutlets

Mutton cutlets coated with a minced chicken and mushroom mixture, then breaded and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Chicken Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the coating

  1. Mince and pound half of a cold chicken and a few mushrooms.

  2. Add grated nutmeg, pepper, coarse sea salt, and egg white to the mixture.

Coat the cutlets

  1. Prepare 6 or 8 mutton cutlets and dip them in egg.

  2. Spread the chicken mixture over both sides of the cutlets.

  3. Dip the cutlets in egg again, then coat with breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in boiling lard until golden brown.

  2. Serve hot, garnished with parsley and mushrooms.

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

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold chicken
Forms the main body of the coating, giving the cutlets a savoury, meaty filling.
Egg white
Binds the chicken mixture so it holds together on the cutlets.
Egg
Acts as a glue so the breadcrumbs stick to the coated cutlets.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.
Mutton cutlets
Provide the base meat that the chicken coating is spread over.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling lard until golden brown. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the breadcrumbs quickly; if it is too cool, the coating absorbs grease and becomes soggy before the meat cooks through.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chicken, mushroom, pepper, egg, mutton, parsley):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chicken, mushroom, pepper, egg, mutton, parsley. 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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