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Devilled Meat

Slices of cooked meat coated in a seasoned sauce, breaded, fried, and served with fried potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Devilled Meat

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the sauce

  1. In a basin, combine the gravy sauce, chutney paste, anchovy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, lemon juice, and curry powder.

  2. Spread the mixture evenly on the slices of cooked meat and refrigerate until the sauce sets.

Coat and fry

  1. Lightly dust the meat with flour, dip it in the beaten egg, and coat it thickly with bread crumbs.

  2. Let the coated meat sit for a short time, then fry in clarified dripping.

  3. Cook in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the meat slices with fried potatoes in the center of the dish.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  3. Mustard + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,816 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Anchovy + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together335 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Gravy sauce
Provides a savoury, moist base that carries the other flavours into the meat.
Chutney paste
Adds sweetness and acidity that balance the savoury sauce.
Egg
Binds the flour and bread crumbs so the coating adheres to the meat.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned coating when fried.
Flour
Dries the meat surface so the egg and crumbs stick evenly.

The step that matters

Let the sauced meat set before coating. Chilling lets the sauce firm up so it stays on the meat rather than smearing off when the flour, egg and crumbs are added.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, anchovy, mustard, meat, flour, egg, bread):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Pumpkinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, anchovy, mustard, meat, flour, egg, bread. 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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