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Beef Cakes

Beef cakes made with minced beef, parsley, potatoes, egg, bread crumbs, and fried in fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beef Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine minced beef, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  2. Mash the cold boiled potatoes and mix them with the beef mixture.

  3. Add the egg and bread crumbs, mixing until well combined.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into cakes.

  2. Heat frying fat in a pan and fry the cakes until golden brown on both sides.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  4. Beef + potatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Minced beef
Provides the main body and savory flavor of the cakes.
Cold boiled potatoes
Add moisture and bulk, helping the cakes stay tender.
Egg
Binds the mixture so the cakes hold their shape when fried.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the cakes a firmer, cohesive texture.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes. Frying over steady heat until golden browns the surface and sets the binding egg, so the cakes firm up and hold together rather than breaking apart or staying pale and soft inside.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, parsley, pepper, butter, egg, bread):

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Carrotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, parsley, pepper, butter, egg, bread. 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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