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Philadelphia Scrapple

A savory loaf made from boiled beef, cornmeal, and butter, sliced and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Philadelphia Scrapple

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Boil the beef until tender.

  2. Remove the meat from the pot.

  3. Pour the cooking liquid into an earthen vessel.

  4. Let the fat rise.

  5. Cut the meat from the bones and mince it finely.

  6. Add the minced meat to the kettle with the liquid after removing the fat.

Make the mush

  1. Season with salt and pepper.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Thicken the mixture with cornmeal.

  4. Cook until thick.

Mold and brown

  1. Mold the mixture into a brick loaf.

  2. Let it harden.

  3. Cut into 1-inch thick slices.

  4. Brown on a butter-greased griddle.

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Beef + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. 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

Beef
Provides the meat and fat that give the scrapple its savory flavor and body.
Indian meal (cornmeal)
Thickens the cooking liquid so the mixture sets firm enough to mold and slice.
Butter
Adds fat to the griddle so the slices brown and develop a crisp, golden surface.

The step that matters

Cook until thick. Cornmeal must be cooked long enough in the hot liquid to gelatinize its starch fully. Undercooked mush stays loose and will not set into a loaf that holds its shape when sliced and browned.

“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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