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Meat Cakes

A dish of finely chopped meat formed into cakes and broiled, served with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Meat Cakes

Why it works: Meat and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,594 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Meat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chop the scraps of meat finely.

  2. Form the meat into cakes about 1 inch thick.

  3. Broil the cakes over a quick fire or place them in a very hot skillet.

  4. Turn the cakes when they are brown.

  5. Serve with butter, salt, and pepper.

  6. Add spices or dried herbs to the mixture if desired.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat scraps
Form the main body of the cakes and provides the savoury flavour and browning.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture when served over the hot cakes.

The step that matters

Turn the cakes when they are brown. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs high heat and a dry surface. Turning once the underside is well browned builds flavour and crust, and avoids tearing the cakes or steaming them in their juices.

“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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