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Minced Meat

A dish of minced cold meat flavored with mushroom ketchup, pepper, and salt, served with rice or potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Minced Meat

Why it works: Mushroom and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,515 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Minced Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mince the scraps of cold meat using a sharp knife.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the minced meat with mushroom ketchup or gravy, and season with pepper and salt.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat the saucepan on the stove to warm the mince through, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.

  2. Serve the mince on a hot dish, surrounded by boiled rice or mashed potatoes.

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. Mushroom + ricetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,515 recipes

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

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,379 recipes

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

  4. Meat + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,481 recipes

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

  5. Meat + mushroomtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,423 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Scraps of cold meat
Forms the main body of the dish, and mincing it gives a finer, more even texture when warmed.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury, umami depth and moisture to the minced meat.
Patna rice or potatoes
Serves as the starchy base the mince is arranged on, adding bulk to the dish.

The step that matters

Warming the mince through gently. Stirring occasionally keeps the mince from sticking and scorching on the base of the pan while the centre heats. Meat that is already cooked only needs to be reheated, so overheating can toughen it and dry it out.

“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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