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Meat Cakes

Meat cakes are fried patties made from minced cold meat, bacon or ham, pepper, salt, and served in gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Meat Cakes

Why it works: Meat and ham are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Meat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Finely mince the cold meat with fat bacon or ham.

  2. Season the mixture with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Mix well and form into cakes.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the cakes until golden brown.

  2. Serve the meat cakes in gravy.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their meaty flavour.
Fat bacon or ham
Adds fat that keeps the cakes moist and carries flavour during frying.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury richness when the cakes are served.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes until golden brown. Frying over sufficient heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, which builds flavour and colour. Cooking too gently leaves the cakes pale, soft and greasy, while overcooking can dry the interior.

“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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