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Beef or Meat Balls

A dish of beef or leftover meat mixed with potatoes, onion, bread, and fried until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beef or Meat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop cold or leftover meats and potatoes to equal amounts.

  2. Add chopped onion if desired.

  3. Soak dry bread in hot water to moisten.

Shape and fry

  1. Combine all ingredients to form a mixture that can be shaped into cakes or balls.

  2. Fry in a skillet with butter or meat drippings until nicely 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  4. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Cold or leftover meats
Provides the main meaty flavor and the bulk of the mixture.
Potatoes
Add body and moisture, making the mixture hold together softly and stay tender.
Dry bread
Soaked in hot water, it absorbs moisture and acts as a binder to hold the mixture together.
Butter or meat drippings
Fat for frying that promotes browning and adds rich flavor to the outside.

The step that matters

Frying until nicely browned. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction, which needs a hot, fairly dry surface. Crowding the skillet or using a cool pan steams the meatballs, leaving them pale and less flavorful.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, potato, bread, butter):

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, potato, bread, butter. 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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