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Meat Porcupine

A loaf of finely chopped meat mixed with breadcrumbs, bacon, and seasonings, baked with bacon strips inserted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Meat Porcupine

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Chop the cooked meat finely.

  2. Add the cracker or bread crumbs and chopped bacon.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

  4. Moisten the mixture with beaten egg and enough stock or water to shape it.

Shape and bake

  1. Mould into an oval loaf and insert strips of fat bacon.

  2. Place in a well-greased shallow pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) until brown.

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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  4. Veal + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Veal + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,056 recipes

    Shared aroma: cis-3-hexenol (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked veal, chicken, or lamb
Forms the main body of the loaf and gives it its meaty structure.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the loaf hold its shape when sliced.
Beaten egg
Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape while baking.
Chopped bacon
Adds fat and savory flavor that keeps the lean meat moist.

The step that matters

Moisten to shape. Too little stock or water leaves the mixture dry and crumbly, while too much makes it soft and hard to mould. Adding just enough liquid lets the crumbs and egg bind the lean meat into a loaf that holds its shape.

“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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