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Plain Veal Cutlets

Veal cutlets coated in egg and breadcrumb mixture, fried and served with a wine‑infused gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Plain Veal Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Cut the cutlets from a leg or lean piece of veal, then trim and flatten them.

  2. Dip the cutlets into the beaten egg.

  3. Coat the cutlets with the grated bread mixed with parsley, pepper, salt, and pounded mace.

Fry and make the gravy

  1. Fry the cutlets in butter until golden brown.

  2. For the gravy, use the trimmings of the meat to make a well‑seasoned gravy; thicken it and add 1–2 tablespoons of white wine.

  3. Alternatively, melt 1 tablespoon of butter with 2 tablespoons of flour in a saucepan and brown it.

  4. Add ½ pint of boiling water, a little pepper, salt, and white wine; boil for a few minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour the gravy into a dish and place the cutlets in it.

  2. Garnish with cut lemon and parsley.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + macetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,268 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal cutlets
Form the main body of the dish, cooked until tender and golden.
Beaten egg
Acts as a binder so the crumb coating adheres to the cutlets.
Grated bread
Forms a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.
Butter
Fat for frying that promotes browning and adds richness.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth to the gravy.

The step that matters

Fry the cutlets in butter until golden brown. Frying over moderate heat browns the crumb coating through Maillard reactions while the veal cooks through. Too high a heat scorches the coating before the meat is done, and too low a heat leaves it pale and greasy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, bread, parsley, pepper, butter, white wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, bread, parsley, pepper, butter, white wine. 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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