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Meats, Efc

A baked beef meat cake topped with mashed potatoes and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Meats, Efc

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cakes

  1. Finely mince the cold roast beef.

  2. Mix in grated bread crumbs, chopped onion, chopped parsley, beef dripping, and walnut sauce.

  3. Optionally add scraped cold tongue or grated ham for extra flavor.

  4. Form the mixture into broad flat cakes.

Top and bake

  1. Spread a thin layer of mashed potatoes on the top and bottom of each cake.

  2. Place a small bit of butter on top of every cake.

  3. Arrange the cakes on a dish and bake in the oven until browned at 400°F (200°C).

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + walnuttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together865 recipes

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

  5. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold roast beef
Forms the main body of the cakes, giving them their meaty flavor and substance.
Grated bread crumbs
Absorbs moisture and helps bind the minced meat so the cakes hold their shape.
Beef dripping
Adds fat, which keeps the cakes moist and richly flavored as they cook.
Mashed potatoes
Forms a soft layer on the cake surfaces that helps keep the interior moist during baking.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and a rich flavor on the cake tops.

The step that matters

Forming the flat cakes. The mixture must be shaped evenly and not packed too tightly, so the cakes cook through at the same rate and stay tender rather than dense.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, onion, parsley, sauce, ham, potato):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, onion, parsley, sauce, ham, potato. 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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