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Bread

Bread Cutlets

Bread cutlets are bread slices coated in egg and breadcrumbs, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Bread Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut slices of bread about ½ inch thick.

  2. Soak the bread slices in milk briefly, ensuring they don't break.

  3. In a bowl, mix parsley, herbs, lemon zest, nutmeg, and breadcrumbs.

Coat and fry

  1. Break the egg into a plate and dip each bread slice into the egg, then coat with the breadcrumb mixture.

  2. Fry the coated slices in oil in a frying pan until golden.

  3. Drain on paper towels and serve hot.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the body of the cutlet and absorbs milk to become tender inside.
Milk
Moistens the bread so it softens without falling apart.
Egg
Binds the breadcrumb coating so it adheres to the bread slices.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp golden crust when fried in oil.

The step that matters

Soaking the bread in milk. Bread that soaks too long becomes waterlogged and breaks apart, while bread soaked briefly stays intact and holds its shape through coating and frying. Brief soaking lets the crumb absorb just enough liquid to stay moist without losing structure.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, pepper, parsley, lemon, egg):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, pepper, parsley, lemon, 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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