Skip to main content
Main

Beef Cutlets in Paper

Beef cutlets seasoned, coated, and baked in parchment paper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Chive and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 587 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Beef Cutlets in Paper

six cutlets
Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Form the cutlets

  1. Mix the minced beef, bacon, mushroom, chives or shallot, salt, pepper, cayenne, mustard, egg yolk, beef gravy, and sherry until well combined.

  2. Form the mixture into six cutlets.

  3. Dip each cutlet into melted butter.

  4. Dredge each cutlet lightly with flour.

  5. Refrigerate the cutlets for 1 hour.

Coat the cutlets

  1. Season the bread crumbs with mixed herbs, salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Dip each cutlet into the beaten egg.

  3. Coat each cutlet with the seasoned bread crumbs.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter six half-sheets of parchment paper.

  2. Place a cutlet in each parchment sheet.

  3. Fold the edges to form a small packet.

  4. Place the packets on a baking sheet.

  5. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 25 minutes.

  6. Serve the cutlets in the paper.

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. Chive + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Beef + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + sherrytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  4. Mushroom + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

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

  5. Mushroom + chivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Roast beef
Forms the main body of the cutlet and gives it its meaty texture.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that keeps the cutlet moist and rich as it cooks.
Egg yolk
Binds the minced mixture together so the cutlets hold their shape.
Butter
Adds fat and richness and helps the crumb coating brown.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden outer coating on the cutlets.
Egg
Helps the bread crumb coating adhere to each cutlet.

The step that matters

Chilling the cutlets for 1 hour. Chilling firms the fat and the binding egg so the cutlets keep their shape and the coating stays put during baking.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, mushroom, chive, pepper, egg, sherry, butter):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, mushroom, chive, pepper, egg, sherry, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes