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Broiled Meat Cakes

A savory dish of ground steak mixed with egg, milk, bread, and seasonings, formed into cakes and broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broiled Meat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Run the steak through a food chopper with a little suet.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped steak, egg, salt, pepper, milk, and crumbled bread. Mix all ingredients together well.

  3. Form the mixture into small cakes.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat a greased griddle and place the cakes on it.

  2. Brown the cakes on both sides.

  3. Pour a little melted butter over the cakes and garnish with parsley.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 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

Steak
Provides the meat base and savory flavor of the cakes.
Egg
Binds the chopped meat and bread so the cakes hold their shape.
Bread
Absorbs milk and juices, keeping the cakes tender and moist.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the lean meat moist and rich while cooking.
Milk
Adds moisture that softens the bread and loosens the mixture.

The step that matters

Browning the cakes on both sides. The griddle must be hot and greased so the cakes sear and brown quickly. Searing builds flavor on the surface and helps the cakes keep their shape, rather than sticking or steaming in their own juices.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Sagefits less well

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