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A Nice Breakfast Dish

A baked casserole of minced beef or lamb with mashed potatoes, cream, butter, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 143 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

A Nice Breakfast Dish

Ingredients

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 a pinch of powdered cloves; if lamb, add summer savory, pepper, and salt.

  3. Place the meat in a baking dish.

Top and bake

  1. Mix the mashed potatoes with cream, butter, and a little salt, then spread over the meat.

  2. Beat the egg with cream or milk and spread it over the potatoes.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + summer savorytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together143 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Beef + lambtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together896 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Summer savory + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold beef or lamb
Forms the savory meat base that the potato topping covers and bakes over.
Mashed potatoes
Form the topping that becomes soft inside and browns on the surface in the oven.
Egg
Beaten egg sets as a thin layer over the potatoes and helps them brown.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the potato topping and helps it brown.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the potato topping, keeping it smooth.

The step that matters

Bake until the potatoes are browned. The oven must heat the casserole through while the potato surface browns. Removing it too early leaves the meat cool inside, and too long can dry the topping.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  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.

“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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