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Meat Potato Cakes

A savory cake made from chopped cold meat, mashed potatoes, eggs, salt, and pepper, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Meat Potato Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped cold meat with the cold mashed potatoes.

  2. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Add enough eggs to create a thin batter and mix well.

Cook

  1. Heat a skillet and fry the mixture as griddle cakes until golden 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. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold mashed potatoes
Provide the bulk and starch that hold the cakes together and give them body.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set it so the cakes hold their shape when fried.
Cold meat
Supplies the savoury main flavour and substance of the cakes.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes until golden brown. Frying over steady heat browns the outside through the Maillard reaction, adding flavour and a crisp crust, while the inside cooks through. Too little heat leaves them pale and soft, and too much burns the outside before the centre is hot.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, egg. 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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