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A Nice Breakfast Dish

A casserole of minced beef or lamb topped with mashed potatoes, egg, and baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

A Nice Breakfast Dish

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. Mince the cold beef or lamb.

  2. If using beef, add a pinch of ground cloves; if using lamb, add a pinch of summer savory, along with a little pepper and salt.

  3. Place the meat mixture in a baking dish.

Top and bake

  1. Mash the potatoes and mix with cream, butter, and a little salt.

  2. Spread the potato mixture over the meat.

  3. Beat the egg with a small amount of cream or milk.

  4. Spread the egg mixture over the potatoes.

  5. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until warmed through and the potatoes are browned.

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. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold beef or lamb
Forms the savoury meat base of the casserole, already cooked so it only needs warming through.
Mashed potatoes
Forms the creamy top layer that browns in the oven.
Egg
Helps the topping set and encourages browning on the potato layer.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the mashed potato topping.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the potato topping and egg mixture.

The step that matters

Spreading the egg mixture over the potatoes. Beaten egg sets when heated, binding the topping and helping it brown. Using only a small amount of cream or milk keeps the egg mixture thin enough to coat the potatoes evenly without making the topping wet.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, potato, cream, butter, egg, milk):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, potato, cream, butter, egg, milk. 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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