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Meat Cakes

Meat Cakes are pan‑fried patties made from minced meat, mashed potatoes, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Meat Cakes

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 Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the minced meat, mashed potatoes, dripping, dried herbs, salt, and pepper together until well combined.

  2. Divide the mixture into six or eight pieces.

  3. Form the pieces into flat cakes on a floured surface.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat about 1 ounce of dripping in a pan until it smokes.

  2. Fry two or three cakes at a time until browned on one side, then turn the cakes and brown the other side.

  3. Drain the fried cakes on crumpled paper.

  4. Serve the cakes on a hot dish.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

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

  4. Meat + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,594 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cold meat
Provides the main savoury flavour and the bulk of the cake.
Mashed potatoes
Binds the mixture and keeps the cakes moist and tender inside.
Dripping or butter
Adds richness and fat that helps the cakes brown in the pan.
Dried herbs
Adds aroma and savoury flavour to the meat and potato mixture.

The step that matters

Heating the dripping until it smokes. The fat must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the cakes absorb grease and steam instead of forming a crisp, browned crust.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits less well
  4. Mustardfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, butter, 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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