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Bread Cutlets

Bread cutlets are bread slices coated in breadcrumbs and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon 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 ↓

Bread Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut slices of bread about ½ inch thick.

  2. Soak them briefly in milk on a plate, ensuring they don't break.

  3. In a bowl, mix parsley, herbs, lemon zest, nutmeg, and breadcrumbs.

Coat and fry

  1. Break the egg and dip each slice of bread into it.

  2. Coat each slice with the breadcrumb mixture.

  3. Fry the coated slices in oil in a frying pan until golden.

  4. Drain the slices on paper.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with a green vegetable.

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. Parsley + lemontop 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread slices
Forms the body of each cutlet and turns tender and moist when soaked in milk.
Milk
Softens the bread so it absorbs the egg and crumb coating evenly.
Egg
Binds the breadcrumb coating to the bread so it stays attached during frying.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden crust when fried in oil.
Parsley
Adds fresh, green herbal flavour to the coating.
Lemon zest
Adds bright citrus aroma that lifts the coating.

The step that matters

Soak the bread briefly in milk. Bread that soaks too long becomes soggy and falls apart. A brief soak softens the crumb enough to take up moisture while keeping its structure, so the slice holds together through dipping and frying.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, pepper, parsley, lemon, 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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