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Cold Meat and Scrap Cookery

A casserole of layered potatoes and minced meat, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Meat and Scrap Cookery

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Grease a pie dish and layer the bottom with potatoes, about ½ to 1 inch thick.

Assemble

  1. Mix the minced meat with stock or gravy, or onion sauce, and place it in the center of the potato layer.

  2. Add the remaining potatoes on top, starting from the sides to prevent gravy from boiling out.

  3. Rough the surface with a fork for better browning.

  4. Optionally, brush with melted dripping or coat with beaten egg before baking.

Bake

  1. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until hot and brown.

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 + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + saucetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Meat + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,167 recipes

Onion and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,474 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

Potatoes
Form the bulk layers that enclose the meat and brown on the surface.
Cooked meat
Provides the savoury filling at the centre of the dish.
Stock or gravy
Adds moisture to the minced meat so the filling stays juicy while baking.
Beaten egg
Coats the surface to promote browning and a glossy finish when used.

The step that matters

Starting the top layer from the sides. Placing potatoes around the edges first helps keep the liquid gravy in the centre from bubbling out over the top while the casserole bakes.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, meat, sauce, egg):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Mustardfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

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