Skip to main content
Main

Veal Cutlets

Veal cutlets are breaded veal steaks cooked slowly in butter and lard, served with a flour-based gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Veal Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the veal

  1. Pound the veal steak and season it well with salt and pepper.

  2. Cut the outer edges to prevent curling.

  3. Roll the steak in beaten egg, then cover thoroughly with cracker crumbs.

Cook and make gravy

  1. Heat a mixture of butter and lard in a skillet.

  2. Add the meat to the skillet, cover, and cook slowly for 30 minutes, browning nicely on both sides.

  3. For gravy, sprinkle flour in the hot grease, add salt, pepper, and a little water, let it boil, and pour over the cutlets or serve separately.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

Butter and flour 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

Veal steak
Forms the main body of the cutlet, cooking to a tender, juicy bite when cooked slowly.
Egg
Binds the cracker crumbs to the meat so the coating adheres during cooking.
Cracker crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating that seals in moisture.
Butter and lard
Fat for browning the coating and carrying flavor across the skillet.
Flour
Thickens the pan drippings into gravy when stirred into the hot grease.

The step that matters

Cook slowly and cover the skillet. Slow, covered cooking keeps the thin cutlet tender and moist while the coating browns. Too much heat can scorch the crumbs before the meat cooks through.

“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.

More veal cutlets recipes

Breaded 34Fried 28Broiled 19Cracker-Crusted 8in Cream Sauce 6with Potatoes 6 See all 232 →

You might also like

Veal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes