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How to Utilize Cold Meats

A fried dish made from chilled meat, beaten egg, and cracker meal, served with baked apples.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

How to Utilize Cold Meats

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Place cold meat in a kettle with just enough water to prevent burning and cook thoroughly.

  2. Let the meat cool while covered.

  3. Once cool, chop the meat finely in a chopping bowl.

  4. Season the chopped meat with salt, pepper, and sage if desired.

  5. Transfer the seasoned mixture to a crock, cover it, and place a weight on top.

Shape and fry

  1. The next day, slice the meat into ¼ inch thick pieces.

  2. Dip each slice in a beaten egg.

  3. Coat each slice with cracker meal.

  4. Fry the slices in hot oil until golden brown.

  5. Serve with baked apples.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Pepper + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,026 recipes

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

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

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

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

Cold meat
Forms the main body of the fritters, bound together after chopping and pressing.
Beaten egg
Binds the coating so the cracker meal adheres to each slice.
Cracker meal
Forms a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Fry the slices in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the coated slices absorb excess oil and turn greasy instead of crisping. Frying at a steady high heat sets the crust quickly and keeps the inside moist.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, egg, apple):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

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