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Meat Porcupine

A loaf of meat with bacon strips inserted, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Meat Porcupine

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the loaf

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped meat, cracker or bread crumbs, chopped bacon, salt, pepper, cayenne, lemon juice, beaten egg, and enough stock or water to shape the mixture.

  3. Mold the mixture into an oval loaf and place it in a well-greased shallow pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Cut strips of bacon, each ¼ inch wide and 1 inch long.

  2. Make holes in the loaf with a skewer and insert the bacon strips, leaving half an inch exposed.

  3. Bake until brown, allowing the bacon to baste the meat.

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

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

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

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked veal, chicken, or lamb
Forms the main body of the loaf and gives it its meaty flavor.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the loaf hold its shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so it sets into a sliceable loaf when baked.
Bacon
Bastes the meat as it renders, adding fat, moisture and browning.

The step that matters

Shaping and inserting the bacon strips. Packing the mixture too loosely or too tightly can make the loaf crumble or dry out. Bacon strips pushed deep into the loaf may not render and baste the meat evenly, so the holes should be firmly made and the strips seated well.

“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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