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A Good Bish

A baked dish of minced cold beef or lamb topped with mashed potato and a beaten egg mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and lamb match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 896 recipes mention both. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

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 powdered cloves; if lamb, add summer savory.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, then place in a baking dish.

Add 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 cream or milk and spread it over the potatoes.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Beef + lambtop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together896 recipes

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

  2. Clove + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together13,144 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Beef + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,051 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Cream + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

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

  5. Lamb + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together520 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the mashed topping that becomes golden and browned in the oven.
Egg
Binds the cream or milk mixture so the topping sets and holds together.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the mashed potatoes, helping them brown.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness to the potato mixture and the egg coating.

The step that matters

Spread the egg and cream mixture over the potatoes. The beaten egg sets into a custard-like layer when baked. Spreading it evenly covers the potatoes so the topping cooks uniformly and browns without drying in patches.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

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

  1. Parsleybetter flavor fit
  2. Thymebetter flavor fit
  3. Celerybetter flavor fit
  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. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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