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Minced Meat and Mashed Potatoes

A casserole of minced meat served over mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,305 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Minced Meat and Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

  1. Chop the meat finely.

  2. Melt the dripping in a small saucepan.

  3. Add the flour and stir until smooth and brown.

  4. Add the stock and stir until it boils.

  5. Season to taste.

  6. Add the meat and heat through without boiling.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Mash the potatoes and mix in the milk.

  2. Season to taste.

  3. Beat the potatoes until light and fluffy.

Assemble

  1. Form a wall of potatoes around a dish.

  2. Pour the meat and gravy into the center.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Potato + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

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

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the gravy and helps it brown when stirred into the melted dripping.
Dripping
Adds fat for frying the flour and gives the gravy richness.
Potatoes
Form the base of the dish; beating them light and fluffy gives a soft, airy texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the mashed potatoes.
Bone stock
Forms the liquid of the gravy, adding savory flavor.
Cold meat
Provides the main filling, heated through in the gravy.

The step that matters

Heat through without boiling. Once the meat is in the gravy, boiling can toughen cooked meat and make it dry. Gentle heating warms it through while keeping it tender.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, milk, flour, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, milk, flour, pepper. 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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