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Chicken Cutlets

A fried chicken cutlet made with minced chicken, mushrooms, and a white sauce, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 binding sauce

  1. Melt butter.

  2. Add flour.

  3. Gradually stir in chicken stock or milk until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat.

  5. Stir in beaten egg yolks.

  6. Cook for 1 minute.

Mix and shape

  1. Add minced chicken, mushrooms, salt, cayenne, nutmeg, and onion juice. Mix well.

  2. Chill.

  3. Shape mixture into cutlets.

Coat and fry

  1. Roll in breadcrumbs.

  2. Dip in beaten egg.

  3. Coat again with breadcrumbs.

  4. Fry in deep oil until golden brown.

  5. Garnish.

  6. 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. Mushroom + buttertop 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. Chicken + oniontop 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

Cooked chicken
Forms the main body of the cutlet and gives it its meaty filling.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a sauce that binds the mixture together.
Butter
Adds richness and carries the flour when the base sauce is made.
Egg yolks
Enrich and bind the sauce, helping the mixture hold its shape.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and savoury earthy flavour to the filling.
Chicken stock or milk
Liquid that gelatinises the flour into a thick, cohesive base.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce before adding the egg yolks. Egg yolks scramble if they meet a very hot mixture, so the sauce is removed from heat before they are stirred in. Gentle heat keeps the binder smooth and cohesive.

Swap the onion

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

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

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