Name: Minced Meat
Ingredients: cooked meat (any kind); 1 onion; 1 teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon pepper; 1 teaspoon flour; 1 quart water; ½ pint strained stock; toast (for serving)

Why it works: Onion and pepper 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 ↓

Minced Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

Cut cooked meat into thin slices lengthwise, then into small pieces crosswise.
Place the minced meat in a wooden bowl.
Remove any hard pieces of skin from the meat.

Simmer and serve

Boil the meat in 1 quart of water for 2-3 hours, reducing to ½ pint.
Add the onion, salt, pepper, and flour to the minced meat.
Combine everything in a frying pan with the strained stock.
Simmer for 10 minutes, then serve with diced toast around the 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,364 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together32,460 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked meat: Provides the main body and protein of the dish.
Onion: Adds aroma and savoury sweetness as it softens.
Flour: Thickens the liquid slightly so it clings to the meat.
Strained stock: Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the finished dish.

The step that matters

Reducing the boiled meat to ½ pint. Long simmering concentrates the cooking liquid and draws flavour from the meat into it. Boiling hard can toughen the meat and reduce the liquid too fast, so keep a gentle simmer and check the volume against the half-pint target.