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Dessert

Cold Meat Cookery

A hash of cold meat simmered in gravy with flour, seasoning, and optional catsup, served with toasted or fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Meat and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,924 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Cold Meat Cookery

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hash

  1. Cut the meat into neat pieces.

  2. Mix the flour smoothly with the gravy and boil for three minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Add seasoning and catsup or sauce if desired.

Warm and serve

  1. Add the pieces of meat to the gravy and warm through without boiling.

  2. Serve the hash on a hot dish and garnish with snippets of fried or toasted bread.

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. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  3. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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

Remains of cold meat
Forms the body of the hash and supplies the main flavour.
Stock or gravy
Provides the liquid that carries the meat and gives moisture and savoury flavour.
Flour
Thickens the gravy so it clings to the meat instead of running off.

The step that matters

Boil the flour and gravy for three minutes. Flour only thickens fully when it reaches a boil and cooks briefly, which removes its raw taste. Stirring constantly keeps it smooth without lumps. Boiling the meat itself would toughen it, so it is added afterward and only warmed.

“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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