Name: Minced Meat on Toast
Ingredients: 1 cup chopped meat; ½ cup gravy; 1 teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon salt; a few drops of onion juice; toast

Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Minced Meat on Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

Remove all fat, gristle, and bone from the meat.
Chop the meat very fine.

Cook and serve

In a saucepan, combine the chopped meat, gravy, pepper, salt, and onion juice.
Heat the mixture until hot.
Serve the minced meat on toast.

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.

Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,364 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped meat: Forms the main body of the dish, giving it its substance and bite.
Gravy: Adds moisture and savory flavor, keeping the minced meat from drying out when heated.