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Meat Porcupines

A loaf of finely chopped meat mixed with breadcrumbs, bacon, and lemon juice, baked with bacon strips inserted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Porcupines

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped meat, cracker or bread crumbs, chopped bacon, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  3. Moisten the mixture with the beaten egg and enough stock or water to shape it.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Make holes in the loaf with a small skewer and insert the strips of bacon, leaving half an inch exposed. Push the meat firmly around the bacon and bake until 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

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

  5. Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

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 provides its savoury meaty flavour.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the loaf hold its shape while baking.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky flavour, and the strips keep the loaf moist as they render.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich meat flavour.

The step that matters

Pushing the meat firmly around the bacon. Loose packing leaves air gaps and gaps around the bacon, so the loaf can crumble when sliced and the strips may pull free during baking.

“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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