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Bread Cutlets

Bread cutlets are slices of stale bread soaked in milk, coated with herbs and breadcrumbs, then fried until golden.

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 the bread into slices about ½ inch thick.

  2. Soak the slices in milk briefly, ensuring they do not break.

Coat and fry

  1. Mix the chopped parsley, herbs, lemon peel, pepper, and salt with the breadcrumbs.

  2. Beat the egg on a plate.

  3. Dip each slice of bread in the egg, then coat with the seasoning mixture.

  4. Fry the slices in hot oil until golden brown, about 3 minutes.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale bread
Its dry, porous crumb soaks up milk and egg while holding its shape when fried.
Milk
Moistens the bread so the slices become tender inside.
Egg
Binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the bread and sets when fried.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer crust when fried in hot oil.

The step that matters

Soak the slices in milk briefly. Bread that soaks too long becomes soft and falls apart, so the slices need only a short soak to absorb moisture while staying intact.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, lemon, 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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