Why it works: Ham and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,536 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓
Meat Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Finely mince the cold meat with a little fat bacon or ham, or an anchovy.
Season the mixture with pepper and coarse sea salt.
Mix well and shape into small cakes, each three inches long, one and a half inches wide, and half an inch thick.
Fry the cakes until they are light brown.
Serve with good gravy, or place in a mold and boil or bake them.
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.
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Ham + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,536 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
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Anchovy + breadtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,260 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).
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Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together68,474 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,330 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Meat + anchovytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together335 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ham, anchovy, pepper, bread, egg):
- Capsicumfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Mustardfits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, anchovy, pepper, bread, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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