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Cottage-cheese Cutlets

Cottage cheese cutlets are fried patties made with cottage cheese, bread crumbs, peanut butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cottage-cheese Cutlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the onion in the fat until tender but not brown.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and mix it into the cottage cheese.

  3. Thoroughly combine all other dry ingredients with the bread crumbs.

Shape and fry

  1. Blend the peanut butter and onion with the cheese, then mix in the bread crumbs.

  2. Form the mixture into cutlet-shaped or flat cakes, dust with bread crumbs or cornmeal.

  3. Fry in a little fat in a hot frying pan until golden brown.

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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  2. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Cottage cheese + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Cottage cheese
Provides the moist, soft body that the cutlets are formed from.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the cutlets structure so they hold their shape.
Peanut butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the cutlets tender and moist.
Baking soda
Raises the mixture slightly and helps the cutlets brown in the pan.
Onion
Adds savory flavor and aroma once softened in the fat.

The step that matters

Fry in a hot pan until golden brown. The pan must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly, forming a crust that holds the soft, moist cheese mixture together. A cool pan lets the cakes absorb fat and fall apart.

Swap the peanut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cottage cheese, bread, meat, sage, thyme, milk, pepper):

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cottage cheese, bread, meat, sage, thyme, milk, pepper. 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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