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Grouse Cutlets

Grouse cutlets are made from cooked grouse meat mixed with stock, flour, and seasonings, formed into cutlets, breaded, fried, and served with macaroni and parsley.

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 ↓

Grouse Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Remove all skin and bones from the grouse and chop the meat finely.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan. Add the flour to the melted butter.

  3. Cook the mixture for 2-3 minutes over medium heat.

  4. Gradually add the stock, stirring until it boils.

  5. Cook the mixture well after it boils.

  6. Add the highly flavored part from the back of the bird.

  7. Add the chopped meat and seasoning to the mixture.

  8. Turn the mixture onto a plate to cool.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the cooled mixture into cutlets.

  2. Dip each cutlet in beaten egg.

  3. Coat the cutlets with breadcrumbs.

  4. Fry the cutlets in hot fat until golden brown.

  5. Drain the cutlets.

Serve

  1. Serve each cutlet with a small piece of macaroni, garnished with 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Grouse
Provides the main meat, which is chopped and bound into the cutlet filling.
Flour
Cooked with butter to form a roux that thickens the stock into a binding base.
Brown stock
Liquid that, once thickened with the roux, moistens and flavors the filling.
Butter
Fat that is melted with the flour to start the roux and adds richness.
Egg
Beaten egg coats the cutlets so the breadcrumbs adhere and form a crisp, set crust.
Breadcrumbs
Outer coating that browns when fried, giving the cutlets a crisp exterior.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture well after it boils. Thoroughly cooking the flour and stock removes raw starch taste and lets the sauce thicken enough to hold its shape when chilled and shaped.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, pepper, butter, egg):

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, pepper, butter, egg. 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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