Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Veal Cutlets, a LA Feied Oysters
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Dry the veal pieces with a towel and season with coarse sea salt.
Prepare two dishes: one with the beaten egg and another with the rolled crackers.
Coat and fry
Dip each piece of veal in the egg, then coat with the rolled crackers.
Heat enough lard or butter in a skillet to nearly cover the cutlets.
Fry the cutlets until golden brown.
To make a rich gravy, add a little boiling water to the skillet after the meat is done.
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.
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,381 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,845 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
- Veal
- The main meat; cutlets are cooked through and tender when fried in fat.
- Beaten egg
- Acts as a binder so the cracker coating sticks to the veal.
- Rolled crackers
- Form a crisp, golden, browned crust around the cutlets.
- Lard or butter
- Frying fat that conducts heat for browning and adds richness.
The step that matters
Fry the cutlets until golden brown. The cracker crust browns through Maillard reactions in hot fat. If the fat is too cool, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy; if too hot, it darkens 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.
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