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Meat and Potatoes

A baked casserole of minced beef or mutton with onions, pepper, salt, gravy, topped with mashed potatoes and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Meat and Potatoes

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 filling

  1. Mince the beef or mutton with onions, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Add a little gravy and mix well.

  3. Spoon the mixture into scalloped shells or small cups, filling them three-quarters full.

Top and bake

  1. Mash the potatoes with a little cream and spoon on top of the meat mixture.

  2. Place a small piece of butter on top and brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef or mutton
Provides the savoury, meaty base that the filling is built around.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they cook into the meat.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour so the meat mixture stays juicy.
Potatoes
Form a soft, creamy layer that covers and seals the meat.
Cream
Makes the mashed potato smooth and rich.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the potato top brown richly in the oven.

The step that matters

Browning the potato top. Browning relies on dry surface heat, so the top needs to be spread evenly and exposed to the oven's heat. Butter's fat helps the surface brown. Too little heat leaves it pale, while too much can scorch it before the filling is heated through.

“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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