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Sauce

Sauce for Cutlets

A savory sauce made with dripping, flour, stock, Worcestershire sauce, and parsley, simmered for an hour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Sauce for Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the dripping over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour, salt, and pepper, stirring to form a roux.

  3. Gradually whisk in the stock until smooth.

  4. Cook the sauce just below boiling for one hour, or until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in Worcestershire Sauce and parsley just before serving.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sauce + parsleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,693 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Dripping
Fat that carries flavour and forms the base of the roux.
Flour
Thickens the sauce when cooked with fat into a roux.
Stock
Liquid that becomes the body of the sauce as it is whisked in.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds savoury, tangy depth to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Whisking in the stock gradually. Adding liquid slowly to the hot roux and whisking constantly keeps flour from clumping, so the sauce becomes smooth rather than lumpy.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour, sauce):

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, sauce. 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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