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Chicken Cutlets

Fried chicken cutlets made with butter, onion juice, flour, stock, eggs, mushrooms, nutmeg, and breadcrumbs, served with mushroom or oyster sauce.

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 filling

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and add onion juice.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for a minute.

  3. Gradually add chicken stock or milk, stirring until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in the egg yolks, chicken, mushrooms, nutmeg, and salt.

  5. Cool the mixture, then shape into cutlets.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each cutlet in breadcrumbs, then in beaten egg, and again in breadcrumbs.

  2. Fry in deep fat until golden brown and drain on paper towels.

Garnish and serve

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

  2. 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

Butter
Enriches the flour-thickened base and adds richness to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the stock or milk into a binding sauce that holds the filling together.
Egg yolks
Bind the filling and help it set firm when cooled and fried.
Chicken
Forms the main body and savoury flavour of the cutlets.
Mushrooms
Add moisture and earthy flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Cool the filling before shaping. A warm, loose filling cannot hold its shape and may split or slump in the hot fat. Chilling lets the flour-thickened sauce and egg yolks firm up so the cutlets keep their form while 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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