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Indian Cutlets

A fried cutlet made from back ribs, seasoned with lemon, curry powder, egg, breadcrumbs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Indian Cutlets

7 to 9 cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the cutlets neatly and scrape the bone clean about an inch from the top.

  2. Rub each cutlet with lemon juice and sprinkle with curry powder.

  3. Brush the cutlets with the beaten egg and toss in breadcrumbs.

Cook

  1. Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Fry the cutlets for 7 to 10 minutes on both sides until cooked through.

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. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Eggs
The beaten egg binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the cutlet.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.
Butter
Conducts heat in the pan and adds richness and browning to the coating.
Curry powder
Adds warm spice aroma and flavour to the meat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the meat.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raspberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter. 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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