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Cornish Cutlets

A dish of sliced meat coated with potato mash and breadcrumbs, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cornish Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat into slices 1½ inches thick and trim into heart shapes.

  2. Sprinkle the slices with salt, pepper, and parsley, then pour over the ketchup.

Make the potato coating

  1. Wash, peel, and boil the potatoes, then dry and mash them through a sieve.

  2. Beat one egg and mix it with the potato mash, seasoning with salt, pepper, and lemon juice or nutmeg.

  3. Cover each slice of meat with the mashed potatoes, shaping and smoothing with a knife.

Bread and fry

  1. Beat the second egg, dip each cutlet in the egg, and coat with breadcrumbs; repeat for a second coating.

  2. Fry the cutlets in hot fat until golden, then drain on a cloth and garnish with crisp parsley.

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. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the main body of the cutlet and gives it its meaty filling.
Potatoes
Mashed, they bind and cover the meat, giving a soft interior under the crust.
Eggs
Bind the potato layer and help the breadcrumbs stick for an even coating.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns when fried.
Ketchup
Adds sweetness and acidity to the meat for extra flavour.

The step that matters

Coating with egg and breadcrumbs. The egg must fully cover the potato layer before the breadcrumbs go on, and the second coating adds a thicker crust. Without an even coat, the crumbs can fall off or burn in patches during frying.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ketchup, egg, lemon, pepper, parsley):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ketchup, egg, lemon, pepper, 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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