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Vegetable Cutlets

Vegetable cutlets made from cooked rice, beans, mashed potato, and corn starch, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,211 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Vegetable Cutlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the mixture

  1. Cook the chopped onion in the fat or oil until soft.

  2. Add the cooked rice, beans, corn starch, mashed potato, and salt to the pan.

  3. Mix the ingredients well and shape them into cutlets.

Bake

  1. Bake the cutlets for 30 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Baste twice with additional fat or oil.

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. Beans + corntop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Rice + beanstop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,017 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked beans
Provide the bulk and protein-rich body of the cutlets.
Cooked rice
Adds bulk and a tender, crumbly texture to the mixture.
Mashed potato
Adds moisture and starch that helps the cutlets hold together.
Corn starch
Absorbs moisture and binds the mixture so it shapes and holds its form.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor when softened in fat.

The step that matters

Shape and bake the cutlets evenly. The mixture must be mixed well so the starch and mashed potato bind evenly; otherwise cutlets can crumble or bake unevenly. Basting with fat during baking helps the surface brown and stay moist.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, beans, corn, potato):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, beans, corn, potato. 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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