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Chicken Cutlets

Chicken cutlets made with finely chopped chicken, white sauce, butter, flour, egg yolks, shallot, spices, breadcrumbs, and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,019 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chicken Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Chop the chicken finely.

  2. In a pan, melt the butter and sauté the shallot and flour without browning.

  3. Add the white sauce and bring to a boil.

  4. Stir in the chicken, nutmeg, salt, and pepper, and heat thoroughly.

  5. Remove from heat and mix in the egg yolks.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into cutlets, coat with breadcrumbs, and fry in hot fat until golden.

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. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chicken
Forms the main body of the cutlets and gives them their savoury flavour.
White sauce
Binds the chicken into a moist mixture that holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the filling and cooks the shallot gently.
Flour
Thickens the butter and shallot mixture so the sauce becomes stable.
Egg yolks
Enriches the mixture and helps it set when heated, holding the cutlets together.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Mix in the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks begin to set when heated, so adding them after removing the pan from the heat prevents scrambling and keeps the mixture smooth and binding.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

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