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Ground Meat Cakes

Small flat rounds of seasoned ground steak cooked in butter and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ground Meat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Mix the ground steak with breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, onion salt, and beaten egg.

  2. Shape the mixture into small flat rounds.

Cook and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a chafing dish and fry the rounds on both sides until tender.

  2. Add the gravy, cover the dish, and reheat for five minutes.

  3. Serve hot.

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 + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Pepper and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 50,580 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

Ground steak
Provides the meat base that gives the cakes their savory, beefy flavor and body.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb meat juices and help the cakes hold their shape while keeping them tender.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture together so the rounds hold their shape during frying.
Butter
Adds fat for frying, promoting browning and a rich flavor on the cakes' surfaces.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor when the cakes are reheated with it.

The step that matters

Fry the rounds on both sides until tender. Cooking the patties fully through without overcrowding lets the surface brown and the centre cook evenly, so they stay tender rather than dry or raw inside.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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