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To Broil or Fry Pork Cutlets

Pork cutlets seasoned with pepper, cayenne, and salt, then broiled or fried and served with pan gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

To Broil or Fry Pork Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cutlets

  1. Cut pork into ½ inch thick cutlets and trim into neat shapes.

  2. Remove some or all of the fat as desired.

  3. Dredge cutlets with pepper or cayenne.

Broil

  1. Broil over a moderate fire (350°F/175°C) for 15-18 minutes.

  2. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt just before serving.

Coat and season

  1. Dip cutlets in egg.

  2. Coat cutlets with breadcrumbs mixed with minced sage.

  3. Flour the cutlets.

  4. Season the cutlets with salt and pepper before frying.

Serve

  1. Serve with gravy from the pan or sauce Robert.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Loin of pork
The main meat; lean cutlets dry out quickly, so they need careful cooking.
Egg
Acts as a binder so the breadcrumb coating sticks to the cutlet.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp, browned crust on the outside of the cutlet.
Flour
Dries the cutlet surface and helps the egg grip, aiding browning.

The step that matters

Broil for 15-18 minutes. Pork loin is lean, so overcooking dries out the meat and toughens it. Watch the cutlets near the end of the time so they stay juicy while the coating browns.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Jalapenofits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, egg, flour. 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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