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Beef Cutlets

Breaded beef cutlets seasoned with salt and coarse sea salt, coated in beaten egg and breadcrumbs, then fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and parsley are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,866 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Beef Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the beef steak into oval or triangular fillets.

  2. Season the fillets with salt and coarse sea salt.

Bread and fry

  1. Dip each fillet in beaten egg, then coat with breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry the cutlets in hot oil until golden brown.

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. Beef + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

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

  3. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef steak
Forms the main body of the cutlet and provides the meaty texture.
Egg
Binds the breadcrumbs to the beef so the coating stays in place during frying.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns in the hot oil.

The step that matters

Frying the cutlets in hot oil. Oil that is hot enough sets the egg and crumb coating quickly and browns it, so the coating crisps rather than soaking up oil and falling off the meat.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Pepperfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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