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Patties with Onions

A savory patty made from bread crumbs, milk, ham, onion, eggs, and butter, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Patties with Onions

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 mixture

  1. Moisten the bread crumbs with milk in a bowl.

  2. Mix in the cooked ham and chopped onion, if using.

Fill and bake

  1. Spoon the mixture into gem pans.

  2. If desired, break an egg over each gem or sprinkle with chopped hard-boiled egg.

  3. Top with a few bread crumbs and bits of butter.

  4. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + hamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and form the body of the patties, giving them a light, tender texture.
Milk
Moistens the bread crumbs so the mixture binds and stays juicy while baking.
Cooked ham
Provides the main savory flavor and meaty substance of the patties.
Eggs
Optional; when broken over each gem they set during baking, adding richness and a firmer top.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the tops brown and contributes a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Bake until browned. Baking at 400°F sets the egg and crumb mixture and browns the surface through the Maillard reaction. Removing them too early leaves them pale and soft in the middle, while overbaking dries the bread crumbs out.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, ham, egg, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, ham, egg, butter, pepper. 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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