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Cold Lunches for Washing Days, or Other Days of Extra Labor

A cold lunch plate of sliced corned beef, baked potatoes, bread, butter, pickles, mince pie, and cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 938 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cold Lunches for Washing Days, or Other Days of Extra Labor

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Slice the cold corned beef nicely.

  2. Bake the potatoes until tender.

  3. Serve with bread, butter, and pickles.

  4. For dessert, serve mince pie and cheese.

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. Corn + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + cheesetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold corned beef
Provides the main protein; slicing it neatly gives an even, attractive presentation.
Baked potatoes
Supply starchy bulk; baking softens the flesh until tender throughout.
Bread
Serves as a neutral base that carries the beef and butter.
Butter
Adds fat and richness that softens the bread and complements the salty beef.
Cheese
Adds fat, salt and savoury flavour to the dessert course.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, beef, bread, butter, cheese):

  1. Tomatofits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, beef, bread, butter, cheese. 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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