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Pork, Cutlets, Grilled

Grilled pork cutlets served with a buttery gherkin sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pork, Cutlets, Grilled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim off nearly all the fat from the cutlets.

  2. Shape the cutlets uniformly.

  3. Season both sides with salt and pepper.

  4. Coat the cutlets with breadcrumbs.

Cook the cutlets

  1. Heat the butter in a pan.

  2. Sear the cutlets until golden.

  3. Grill the cutlets over a clear fire for 10 minutes, turning 3 or 4 times.

Make the sauce

  1. In a small saucepan, melt the remaining butter.

  2. Add the flour and stir over heat for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Add the gravy and vinegar.

  4. Bring the sauce to a boil.

  5. Season the sauce to taste.

  6. Stir in the gherkins.

Serve

  1. Arrange the cutlets in a circle on a hot dish.

  2. Pour the sauce around the cutlets and serve.

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. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pork + vinegartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

Pork cutlets
Forms the main protein, which browns and firms when seared and grilled.
Butter
Carries heat for searing and adds browning and richness to the cutlets and sauce.
Flour
Cooked in butter, it thickens the sauce when the gravy is added.
Gravy or stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries its savoury flavour.
Gherkins
Chopped pickles add sharp acidity and a bit of texture to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy and balances the butter.

The step that matters

Stir the flour in the melted butter for 2-3 minutes. Cooking the flour in fat drives off its raw starchy taste and lets it thicken evenly. Adding the gravy before this step can leave lumps and a floury flavour.

“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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