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Cold Meat Utilized

A fried patty made from finely chopped beef, soaked bread, eggs, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Cold Meat Utilized

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the beef very finely.

  2. Soak the bread in cold water until very soft.

  3. Squeeze out as much water from the bread as possible, using two-thirds as much bread as meat.

  4. Mix the bread and meat thoroughly together.

  5. Beat the eggs well and mix them in.

  6. Add salt to taste.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into balls the size of a biscuit.

  2. Fry slowly in butter or cooking fat until brown on both sides.

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. Beef + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

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

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Forms the main body of the patties and gives them their meaty flavour and texture.
Bread
Soaked and squeezed, it adds moisture and softness so the patties stay tender.
Eggs
Bind the chopped meat and bread together so the patties hold their shape.

The step that matters

Squeezing the bread. Bread soaked in water must be squeezed dry, otherwise the extra liquid makes the mixture loose and the patties may fall apart or steam rather than brown when fried.

“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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