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Meat Porcupine

A dish of finely chopped pork and rump steak shaped like a porcupine and stewed in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Meat Porcupine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Press the pork and rump steak into a plain oval mold.

  2. Add the shredded garlic, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and beaten eggs, then mix well.

Shape and cook

  1. Turn the mixture out of the mold and stick pieces of fat bacon all over it to resemble a porcupine.

  2. Stew in hot butter for 1 hour until browned all over.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  5. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Adds richness and fat, keeping the meat moist as it cooks.
Rump steak
Provides the main meaty body and firm texture once cooked.
Eggs
Bind the chopped meats together so the shape holds when turned out.
Fat bacon
Melts slowly over the surface, basting the meat and adding savory flavor.

The step that matters

Turning the mixture out of the mold. The mixture is held together only by the beaten eggs and must set firmly in the mold first. If it is turned out too early, it can crumble or lose its shape before stewing.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, clove, pepper, nutmeg, egg, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, clove, pepper, nutmeg, egg, 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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