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Veal-cutlets, with Mushrooms

Veal cutlets sautéed with butter, served in a brown sauce with Madeira and sautéed mushrooms.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Veal-cutlets, with Mushrooms

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Trim and season the veal cutlets.

  2. Fry the cutlets in a flat pan with butter over medium‑high heat for 6 minutes.

  3. Turn the cutlets and cook until well set, then remove them from the pan.

Make the sauce

  1. Drain the butter and add the brown sauce and Madeira to the pan.

  2. Bring the sauce to a boil while stirring.

  3. Add the sliced mushrooms and boil for 7–8 minutes until the sauce reduces and tastes good.

  4. Return the cutlets to the pan and heat them gently without boiling.

Serve

  1. Arrange the cutlets in a circle on a serving dish, garnish with mushrooms, and pour the sauce over them.

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. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,446 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sauce + mushroomtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,480 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Veal + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,381 recipes

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

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 cutlets
The main protein, which sets as it cooks and forms the body of the dish.
Butter
Fat for frying the cutlets, helping them brown and adding rich flavor.
Brown sauce
Savory base of the sauce, giving it body and depth.
Madeira
Adds sweetness and aroma, which concentrate as the sauce reduces.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavor and moisture that releases into and thickens the sauce as it reduces.

The step that matters

Heat the cutlets gently without boiling. Returning the cutlets to the sauce and heating them gently keeps the meat tender. Boiling tightens and toughens the proteins, making the veal dry and chewy.

“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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