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Fifty Lunches

A lunch dish of minced meat and crumbed meat fillets served with mashed potatoes, fried bacon and Brussels sprouts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Fifty Lunches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and sauce

  1. Trim neat fillets from the thigh and drumstick.

  2. Add the trimmings to the mince.

  3. Make a pint of broth with the bones.

  4. Prepare a sauce with the broth.

  5. Combine the mince with enough sauce to achieve a jam-like consistency.

  6. Warm the mince gently over low heat.

  7. Dip the fillets in the sauce.

  8. Roll the fillets in crumbs.

  9. Fry the fillets in boiling fat until golden yellow.

Plate and serve

  1. Serve the mince in a circle of mashed potatoes.

  2. Arrange the fillets and fried bacon around the mince.

  3. Serve remaining sauce heated in a boat.

Cook the Brussels sprouts

  1. Trim Brussels sprouts.

  2. Boil the sprouts in salted water for three minutes.

  3. Drain the sprouts.

  4. Melt butter in a large shallow pan.

  5. Add minced onion and fry gently until soft but not colored.

  6. Lay the drained sprouts over the onion.

  7. Moisten the sprouts with broth.

  8. Simmer gently until cooked.

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 + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat
Forms the main body of the dish, giving the mince and fillets their flavour and bulk.
Broth
Adds moisture and savour, binding the mince into a jam-like texture and moistening the sprouts.
Crumbs
Form a crisp golden coating on the fillets when fried in fat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the pan in which the onion and sprouts cook.
Spanish onion
Softens in butter to add sweetness and aroma to the sprouts.
Brussels sprouts
Provide a green vegetable side that absorbs the broth and butter flavours.

The step that matters

Fry the fillets in boiling fat until golden yellow. The fat must be hot enough to brown the crumb coating quickly. If it is too cool, the crumbs absorb grease and turn soggy before the meat inside is cooked through.

Swap the brussels sprouts

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Brussels sproutsthe original

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