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Bou Dinettes of Cold Meat

A fried fritter made from cold meat, potatoes, parsley, and egg, coated in breadcrumbs.

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 ↓

Bou Dinettes of Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Finely chop the cold meat, ideally using a mincing machine.

  2. Pass the cold potatoes through a wire sieve.

  3. Combine the meat, potatoes, parsley, salt, pepper, and egg in a bowl.

  4. Stir the mixture over low heat.

  5. Add stock or milk if the mixture is too stiff.

  6. Smooth the mixture on a plate.

Shape and coat

  1. Divide the mixture into equal parts.

  2. Shape each part into a cone.

  3. Brush each cone with beaten egg.

  4. Roll each coated cone in breadcrumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the coated cones in hot fat until golden brown.

  2. Drain the fried cones on kitchen paper.

  3. Serve with fresh or fried parsley.

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. Potato + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Meat + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together786 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Forms the main body of the fritter and gives its savoury flavour.
Cold potatoes
Add bulk and softness, helping the mixture hold together and stay moist.
Egg yolk
Binds the mixture so the cones hold their shape while frying.
Breadcrumbs
Form a crisp coating that browns when fried.

The step that matters

Adding stock or milk. If the mixture is too stiff it will crack and dry out when shaped and fried. Adding liquid only as needed keeps it moist yet firm enough to hold its cone shape.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Dillfits about as well

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