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Breakfast

A Nice Breakfast Dish

A casserole of minced meat, mashed potatoes, and egg baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 143 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Nice Breakfast Dish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. Mince the cold beef or lamb.

  2. If using beef, add a pinch of powdered cloves; if using lamb, add a pinch of summer savory, along with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Place the meat mixture in a baking dish.

Make the potato topping

  1. Mash the potatoes and mix with cream, butter, and a little salt.

  2. Spread the potato mixture over the meat.

  3. Beat the egg with a small amount of cream or milk and spread it over the potatoes.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until warmed through and the potatoes are browned.

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. Clove + summer savorytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Beef + lambtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together896 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Summer savory + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold beef or lamb
Forms the savory base of the casserole, supplying most of the flavor and body.
Mashed potatoes
Form the top layer that becomes soft inside and browns in the oven.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the mashed potato topping.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the potato topping brown.
Egg
Sets when baked, binding the topping and helping it brown.

The step that matters

Beat the egg with cream or milk before spreading it over the potatoes. The beaten egg sets into a thin custard-like layer when baked, which helps bind the topping and gives it an even golden color. Spread it evenly so the surface browns uniformly.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, summer savory, lamb, pepper, potato, cream, butter):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, summer savory, lamb, pepper, potato, cream, butter. 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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