Name: Mince of Cold Meat
Ingredients: 1 lb cold meat, minced; 2 onions, peeled and sliced; 1 oz dripping (or cooking fat); 1 tablespoon flour; Salt and pepper to taste; 1 pint gravy or water; Thin slice of bread

Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Mince of Cold Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gravy

In a saucepan, heat the dripping until hot and fry the onions until browned.
Sprinkle in the flour and gradually add the water or gravy, stirring until it boils.
Season with salt and pepper.

Cook and serve

Add the minced cold meat to the gravy and cook slowly for about 20 minutes.
Toast the bread and cut it into pieces.
Serve the mince on a hot dish, arranged with the toasted bread around it.

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.

Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,676 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Meat + oniontop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,364 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: Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender as it simmers slowly in the gravy.
Onions: Browning in the fat builds sweetness and savoury depth for the gravy.
Flour: Thickens the liquid into a smooth gravy that coats the meat.
Dripping: Carries the heat for frying the onions and adds richness.

The step that matters

Adding the flour and liquid gradually. Adding the flour and liquid gradually while stirring keeps the mixture smooth. Dumping it in at once can form lumps that are hard to remove once the gravy thickens.

Swap the onion

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

Shallotfits better
Capsicumfits better
Spinachfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, flour, pepper, bread. 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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Mince of Cold Meat