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Minced Meat with Eggs

A baked dish of minced cold meat and egg in scallop shells, seasoned with bread crumbs, nutmeg, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Minced Meat with Eggs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Finely mince the cold meat.

  2. Add half the quantity of bread crumbs and season with nutmeg, pepper, and salt. Mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill scallop shells with the mixture.

  2. Break one raw egg on top of each shell.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the egg is set but not hard.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately, garnished with 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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 dish and provides its savory flavor.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the minced meat into a cohesive mixture.
Raw egg
Sets on top during baking, forming a soft cooked layer over the meat.

The step that matters

Bake until the egg is set but not hard. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat, so pulling the dish early leaves the white runny, while overbaking causes the proteins to tighten and turn rubbery and dry.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

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