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Meat Sanders

A pastry square filled with seasoned meat, baked until browned.

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 ↓

Meat Sanders

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Mash the cold boiled potatoes thoroughly.

  2. Add coarse sea salt, butter, and enough flour to make a paste that can be rolled out.

  3. Roll out the paste evenly and cut it into squares, similar in size to sausage roll pastry.

Fill and bake

  1. Place some chopped and seasoned meat in the center of each square.

  2. Fold the squares over and glaze with the egg white.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until nicely browned.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cold boiled potatoes
Provide the starchy base that binds the dough into a rollable paste.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the pastry.
Egg white
Glazes the pastry so it browns and turns glossy in the oven.
Flour
Gives the paste enough structure to roll out and hold its filling.
Tinned meat
Forms the savoury filling sealed inside each pastry square.

The step that matters

Glazing with egg white before baking. A thin, even egg white glaze promotes browning and a glossy finish. Brushing too heavily can pool and make the surface sticky, so apply it lightly and evenly over the folded edges.

Swap the potato

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

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

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