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Casserole of Meat

A casserole of mashed potatoes topped with browned crumbs and baked with minced meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Casserole of Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a sharp oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the case

  1. Mix the mashed potatoes, melted butter, beaten egg, and seasoning until well combined.

  2. Grease a small cake tin thickly with melted dripping and line it with browned crumbs.

  3. Press the potato mixture into the bottom and up the sides of the tin, trimming the edges neatly.

  4. Brush the inside with beaten egg.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.

  2. Allow to cool slightly, then carefully turn out and fill with minced meat.

  3. Garnish with parsley and serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

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

  3. Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + meattop 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the case and set firm as they cool, giving it structure.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the potato mixture and improving flavour.
Egg
Binds the potato mixture together and helps it hold its shape when baked.

The step that matters

Allow to cool slightly, then turn out. Mashed potato is soft and fragile when hot. A brief cooling period lets its starch firm up so the case holds its shape when lifted from the tin and filled.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, meat. 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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