Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Veal Cutlets
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the veal
Trim the veal into proper shape and beat it with a rolling pin until the fibers are broken.
Flour the cutlets well to prevent gravy from escaping.
Fry and make the sauce
Fry the cutlets in a pan over medium heat for 12 to 15 minutes until they are amber brown and cooked through.
Transfer the cutlets to a hot dish and pour off the fat from the pan.
Add the butter to the pan and melt it, then stir in the flour until well-colored.
Gradually pour in the gravy or boiling water, adding pepper, salt, and lemon juice.
Bring the sauce to a boil and pour it over the cutlets.
Serve
Serve with fried forcemeat balls or garnished with ham or bacon if desired.
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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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,446 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Lean meat that becomes tender when beaten and fried, forming the main body of the dish.
- Flour
- Coats the cutlets to hold in juices and thickens the butter into a browned base for the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds fat and rich flavor, and helps the flour brown in the pan for the sauce.
- Gravy or boiling water
- Forms the liquid of the sauce that moistens and coats the cutlets.
The step that matters
Stirring the flour into the butter. Cooking the flour in the butter until it is well-colored builds flavor and thickens the sauce evenly. Adding the liquid gradually, while stirring, prevents lumps.
“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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