Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓
Casserole of Cold Meat
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 the potato case
Pass the boiled potatoes through a sieve.
Add ½ oz melted butter, salt, and the yolk of the egg to the potatoes and mix well.
Butter the inside of a deep cake tin and sprinkle the breadcrumbs inside.
Cover the sides of the tin with the potato mixture, pressing it in firmly.
Brush the inside and edge of the potato lining with a little egg.
Bake and turn out
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.
Carefully turn the casserole out onto a dish with the opening facing up.
Make the filling and serve
Melt the remaining butter in a pan, add flour, and brown it well.
Add the stock and seasonings, then bring to a boil.
Stir in the minced mutton and heat through, then pour into the casserole.
Garnish with parsley and serve with gravy.
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.
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Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,525 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,305 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Potato + mushroomtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together968 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together13,580 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Boiled potatoes
- Form the structure of the case and bind it into a firm, moldable lining.
- Egg
- Its yolk binds the potato mixture, and brushing it on helps the surface brown in the oven.
- Flour
- Browned in butter, it thickens the stock into a gravy for the filling.
- Minced mutton
- Provides the savory meat filling that is heated through before serving.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavor to the potato case and helps the flour brown in the filling.
The step that matters
Pressing the potato lining firmly into the tin. Potato that is loosely packed can crack or slump when the case is turned out after baking. Firm, even pressing gives the lining enough cohesion to hold its shape.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mutton, butter, mushroom, ketchup, egg, flour, pepper):
- Shallotfits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Leekfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, butter, mushroom, ketchup, egg, 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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