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Meat Cakes

A savory dish of small round cakes made from veal, onion, bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and cooked in fat or butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Meat Cakes

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 ↓

Meat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix all ingredients except the fat or butter.

  2. Shape the mixture into small round cakes.

Brown and serve

  1. Melt the fat in a baking pan.

  2. Brown the cakes in the fat, cooking one side first, then the other.

  3. If using raw veal, cover the pan to retain heat and soften the meat.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Chopped veal
Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their meaty flavor and texture.
Soaked bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the cakes hold together with a tender texture.
Savory fat or butter
Conducts heat for browning the cakes and adds richness to their surface.

The step that matters

Browning the cakes. Cooking one side fully before turning helps the cakes form a crisp, browned crust that holds their shape. Turning too early can tear the cakes apart.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, bread, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, bread, 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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