Name: Meat Mince
Ingredients: scraps of roast meat, poultry, or game; cold boiled bacon or ham (optional); 1 onion, chopped; butter; flour; broth; cream (if using veal); mashed potato, rice, or hominy (for serving); toasted bread (for garnish)

Why it works: Onion and potato 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 ↓

Meat Mince

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the meat scraps into very small squares, removing any gristle.
Chop the onion to the same size as the meat.
In a stewpan, melt a bit of butter and add the meat and onion.
Dredge in a little flour and let it brown slightly.
Prepare a sauce with broth, flour, and butter; add cream if using veal.
Warm the minced meat in the sauce.
Serve with a border of mashed potato, rice, or hominy, or garnish with toasted bread.

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.

Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Meat + hamtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, ham, butter, flour, cream, veal, potato):

Leekfits about as well
Onionthe original
Asparagusfits about as well
Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, ham, butter, flour, cream, veal, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.