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A Nice Breakfast Dish

A casserole of cold beef or lamb with mashed potatoes, cream, butter, egg, and seasonings, 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 pulverized cloves; if using lamb, add a pinch of summer savory, a little pepper, and some salt.

  3. Place the meat mixture in a baking dish.

Add the potato topping

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

  2. Spread the potato mixture over the meat.

  3. Beat the egg with a little cream or milk and spread it over the potatoes.

Bake

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

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

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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 savory meat base of the casserole.
Mashed potatoes
Form the topping that bakes into a soft, browned layer.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the potato topping.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the mashed potato topping.
Egg
Sets into the top layer and helps it brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Spreading the egg wash over the potatoes. The beaten egg with cream or milk sets as it bakes and gives the potato top a golden, browned finish. Baking until the potatoes are browned, as the record directs, is what lets the egg layer set properly.

Swap the clove

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

  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. 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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