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Egg Cutlets

Egg cutlets are small pieces of boiled eggs mixed with sauce, herbs, and meat, shaped, breaded, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Egg Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Chop the hard-boiled eggs into small pieces.

  2. Mix the eggs with the white sauce, parsley, tongue or ham, and egg yolk.

Cook and bind

  1. Cook over low heat until the mixture binds together.

  2. If too soft, stir in a few bread crumbs.

Shape and fry

  1. Once cool, shape into cutlet shapes, coat with egg and bread crumbs, and fry in hot oil.

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. Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  4. Egg + hamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,526 recipes

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

  5. Sauce + breadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Hard-boiled eggs
Provide the main body and bulk of the cutlet mixture.
Thick white sauce
Adds moisture and creaminess, helping the chopped eggs hold together.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the mixture as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb excess moisture so the mixture firms up and holds its shape.
Tongue or ham
Adds savoury flavour to the mixture.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat until the mixture binds together. Gentle heat sets the egg and sauce so the mixture thickens without scorching or turning tough. Letting it cool before shaping lets it firm up enough to hold its cutlet form when fried.

“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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