Name: Cold Meat and Potato, Baked
Ingredients: three slices in the butter before adding the hash; a teaspoonful of chopped onion; a tablespoonful of flour; a cupful of cold milk; a cupful of cold meat finely chopped; a piece of butter as large as required to season it well; a piece of butter; salt; pepper

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cold Meat and Potato, Baked

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

Put a round tablespoonful of cold butter in a frying pan.
When the butter is hot, stir in a teaspoonful of chopped onion and a tablespoonful of flour.
Stir constantly until smooth and frothy.
Add two-thirds of a cupful of cold milk or water.
Season with salt and pepper and bring to a boil.

Add the meat and bake

Add a cupful of finely chopped cold meat, cleared of bone and skin.
Heat thoroughly.
Turn into a shallow dish that has been well buttered.
Spread hot or cold mashed potatoes over the top.
Cook for fifteen or twenty minutes in a moderate hot oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

756Calories

22 gProtein

21 gFat

118 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Meat	not in our table	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together42,912 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Flour: Thickens the milk into a smooth, frothy sauce that holds the meat together.
Cold milk: Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and body.
Cold meat: Forms the main filling, providing savory flavor and substance.
Butter: Enriches the sauce and adds richness and flavor to the base.
Chopped onion: Adds aromatic flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir constantly until smooth and frothy. Flour must be cooked in the hot butter while stirred, or it stays lumpy and tastes raw. Stirring keeps starch evenly dispersed as the milk is added, so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, meat, pepper):

Potatofits better
Capsicumfits better
Shallotfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, meat, 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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Cold Meat and Potato, Baked