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Chicken Cutlets

Chicken cutlets made with mushrooms, breadcrumbs, and egg yolks, then fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Chicken and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,172 recipes. Both carry 1-butyl acetate, which smells fruity, banana. The science ↓

Chicken Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the onion juice.

  3. Stir in the flour.

  4. Cook for a minute.

  5. Gradually add the chicken stock or milk.

  6. Stir until thickened.

  7. Remove from heat.

Shape the cutlets

  1. Mix in the egg yolks, chicken, mushrooms, nutmeg, and salt.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool.

  3. Shape the mixture into cutlets.

  4. Dip each cutlet in breadcrumbs.

  5. Dip each cutlet in beaten egg.

  6. Dip each cutlet again in breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the cutlets in deep fat until golden brown.

  2. Drain the cutlets on paper towels.

  3. Insert a 2-inch piece of macaroni into the small end of each cutlet for garnish.

  4. Serve with mushroom or oyster sauce.

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. Chicken + mushroomtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-butyl acetate (fruity, banana).

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

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a binding white sauce base.
Egg yolks
Bind the mixture and help hold the cutlets together when cooked.
Chicken
Provides the main protein and savory bulk of the cutlets.
Mushrooms
Add moisture, earthy flavor, and bulk to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the starting roux.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture before shaping. A warm, loose mixture will not hold its shape and may slump or tear when coated. Cooling lets the starch in the thickened sauce set so the cutlets keep their form through breadcrumbing and frying.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, chicken, egg, pepper, nutmeg, mushroom):

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, chicken, egg, pepper, nutmeg, mushroom. 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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