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Pemican for Toast

A stew of meat, potatoes, and onions seasoned with salt and pepper, served on toast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Pemican for Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Cook

  1. Boil the meat for 3 hours.

  2. Add the butter, potatoes, and onions.

  3. Season well with salt and pepper.

  4. Boil for an additional 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve on toast in a deep dish.

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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Main protein; long boiling softens connective tissue so it becomes tender.
Potatoes
Starch that softens and thickens the mixture as it cooks.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften in the cooking liquid.
Butter
Fat that adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Boil the meat for 3 hours.. A long, gentle boil is needed to break down the meat's connective tissue. If the liquid boils down too far or the meat is rushed, it stays tough and the mixture can scorch.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Onionthe original
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, potato, 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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