Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Veal Cutlets
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the cutlets
Trim the veal cutlets into proper shape and remove any bones.
Beat the cutlets with a rolling pin until the fibers are broken.
Flour the cutlets well to prevent gravy escape.
Fry and make the sauce
Fry the cutlets in a pan over medium heat for 12 to 15 minutes until amber brown and cooked through.
Transfer the cutlets to a hot dish.
In the same pan, add a slice of fresh butter and melt it. Stir in 2 teaspoons of flour until well colored.
Gradually add 1 cup of gravy or boiling water, then season with pepper, salt, and lemon juice.
Bring the sauce to a boil and pour it over the cutlets.
Serve
Serve with optional farcemeat balls or rashers of ham or bacon.
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.
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Pepper + mushroomtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Veal + mushroomtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,446 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Veal cutlets
- Provide the main meat, which is tenderised by beating to break up fibers.
- Flour
- Coats the cutlets and, when browned in butter, thickens the sauce.
- Fresh butter
- Adds fat and richness for frying and for building the sauce base.
- Gravy or boiling water
- Forms the liquid base of the sauce that coats the cutlets.
The step that matters
Flour the cutlets well. Flour creates a coating that holds the gravy to the meat and helps the surface brown during frying. Thin or patchy flour lets the sauce slide off.
“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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