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Meat Cakes

Meat cakes are fried patties made with chopped cold meat, cracker crumbs, eggs, cream, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Meat Cakes

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Meat Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the cold meat finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped meat, cracker crumbs, beaten eggs, and cream. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Form the mixture into small cakes.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the cakes in butter until golden brown. Serve hot.

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

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

  2. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the main body of the cakes, giving them their bulk and flavor.
Cracker crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture so the cakes hold their shape.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help set it as the cakes cook.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the cakes tender inside.
Butter
Fat for frying that browns the outside of the cakes and adds flavor.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes in butter until golden brown. Frying over moderate heat browns the outside through the Maillard reaction while the egg sets the inside. Too high a heat scorches the butter and burns the surface before the center is hot.

“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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